A Free Us from the Tyranny of the Devil...

This is the manuscript for the last sermon I preached in preaching lab this semester.  The text was Mark 5:1-17.

Jesus stepped out of the boat onto the foreign shore of the region of the Gerasenes.  Nothing in our text indicates that the disciples followed him out of the boat.  I imagine they remained in the boat, looking at each other and echoing the question they had asked just a few verses earlier:  “Who is this man?  Even the wind and waves obey him”

So Jesus gets out of the boat and this “madman” runs at him.  In our sanitized, politically correct world, we would say that he was a “man with mental instability” or a “man with mental illness” or if we were psychologically savvy we might say he was a “man with schizophrenia”.   In any case, this was a man who was oppressed by many things.  Whether we believe that they were actual demons or we read it as mental illness, there is no doubt that he was oppressed. The text gives us signs of his oppression:  he lived in the tombs.  No person in complete freedom would choose to live in such a desolate place.  Our text also tells us that he had often been hand and foot and would wander around the tombs night and day, crying out and cutting himself with stones.  It takes a big kind of hurt to drive someone to resort to cutting themselves.  Any counselor or youth pastor who has worked with young people who cut themselves will confirm this.  You have to be hurting really bad before you start cutting on yourself.  And once you’ve started, the cutting itself begins to oppress you and you can’t stop even if you want to.

Whether this man was oppressed by literal demons or by a psychological condition there is no doubt that a whole legion of things was oppressing him, and what’s more, the Roman government with their legions of soldiers were oppressing the entire land.

We too live in a world that is oppressed.   Many countries are oppressed by tyrannical governments.  Many people are oppressed by generational poverty.  No matter how hard they try they cannot find a way out of the systems that have effectively kept them oppressed for so many years.  Last week there was a display in the atrium about human trafficking.  The fact that human trafficking is still happening, and even increasing,  in the United States is evidence that people in our society are being oppressed.  Oppression doesn’t just happen on global or national scale.  It also happens on an individual scale.   If we stop and think, we all know people who living under oppression.  We have friends, family members, congregants who are living under the oppressive thumb of controlling addictions.  We know people who are oppressed by mental illness, people who are oppressed by the pain of memories of years of abuse, people who are oppressed by chronic illness.  No matter what age group you work with, chances are high that someone is struggling under some form of oppression.  Perhaps you yourself are feeling very oppressed.  People who are being oppressed can’t see the way out for themselves.  Talk to a teenager who has a big enough hurt that they have taken to cutting themselves or one who has an eating disorder or a person who is addicted to drugs.  They will tell you that even though they want to stop, they can’t.  And, no one can stop them.   The oppression is real and it feels like it will never end.  The list of things that can, and do, oppress us is legion.

So this extremely oppressed man is running at Jesus, yelling at him, saying “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High G-d?  Swear to G-d that you won’t torture me!”   The man, or the demons within the man, knew who Jesus was and were terrified of him. They didn’t want to be tortured by him.  People had evidently tried to help the man before.  They had chained him up, evidently to keep him from hurting himself more.  For him, it must have been like torture.  Maybe he was afraid that Jesus was going to try and help him that way too.  But Jesus didn’t come blazing onto the scene with an agenda that he was ready to impose on the man.  Instead he engaged the man, and or the demons, depending on your view, in conversation.  He asked him his name.  He listened to the response, and when the legion asked to be allowed to go into the pigs, He said that they could.  

Jesus freed the man from his oppression and the pigs went running down the bank into the lake. The man was free from his oppression and responded in gratitude.  The swine herders on the other hand, were angry and asked Jesus to leave.  Were the swine herders not grateful that the man had been set free from his oppression? Where they really so cold hearted that they wanted to see him suffer?    I don’t think so.  I think they may have even been among the people who tried to “help” this man.   If they routinely herded their pigs in this area, they couldn’t have wanted a madman running around.  Maybe they were the ones that chained him, hoping to help him or even cure him. But they were ticked, completely and utterly ticked.  Their entire livelihood, all two thousand of them, had just committed suicide by running off the cliff into the lake.  I’ve known more than a few pig farmers.  Each pig was valuable.  If anything happened to one of them, much less the entire herd, it was devastating.  The entire livelihood of these swine herders was invested in these pigs and they were gone.  They were so upset by their loss that they failed to see the incredible gift of freedom that had been given to the man. 

I’m sure they wanted this man to be healed.  If they were praying people, I imagine that they even prayed that he was healed.  No one wants to see another person live under than kind of oppression.

When we have someone in our life who is living under oppression, we want them to be freed from it.  We try to help them anyway that we know how.  We pray for them.  We ask G-d to remove the weight of oppression from them.   I still remember the October night when my dorm room phone rang at about 10:30. It was a friend of mine, Kugel.  A mutual friend of ours, Big David, was sick.  She wanted to know if I’d come see him.  I grabbed my medical bag and headed across campus.  I spent the next couple hours assessing and dealing with what I could.  At that point things didn’t look life threatening or worthy of a midnight trip to the emergency room. The next morning Kugel took him student health and from there he went to the hospital.  From the local hospital he went on to the hospital in Des Moines.  I prayed for him.  The entire community on campus prayed for him.  We asked G-d again and again to relieve his oppression.  We wanted our Big David back.  As soon as the doctors got one problem under control another one popped up.  We watched a blood clot in Big David’s brain spontaneously dissolve.  We watched his kidneys fail and then improve.   We rode a crazy roller coaster of emotions, all the while hoping for a miracle. 

We learned more than we ever wanted to know about the medical system and the human body.  Did you know there was a level of care above and beyond Intensive Care?  Neither did I. It’s called Critical Care and there are more nurses than patients on that unit.   I spent many long hours on that unit, sitting with his fiancé and praying.  I spent hours in the prayer room on campus praying with friends.  We begged G-d to remove this legion of oppression from our friend.  And He did.

I wish I could say that this story ends with Big David getting better and coming back to campus and marrying his fiancé and the two of them living happily ever after.  But I can’t.  We buried Big David just before Christmas that year, about two weeks after his 20^th birthday.  His fiancé stood in a funeral line receiving condolences instead of in a wedding reception line receiving congratulations.  We listened to his eulogy instead of his psychology research presentation.

Did G-d fail to answer our prayers for deliverance from this legion of oppression?  Did He not hear us?  Did we not pray enough?  Should we have fasted more?   I don’t think any of that is true.  I believe that G-d did answer our prayers.  It just wasn’t in the way that we expected him to.  We expected him to heal Big David.  We expected Big David to have many more happy years.  G-d had a plan to relieve Big David from the legion of oppression that he was suffering under.  Big David was set free from his failing body, from his diseased brain to spend an eternity rejoicing with Jesus.   We expected one thing from Jesus, but He gave us another.

The Jews expected one thing from Jesus as well.  They expected him to liberate them from the oppression of the legions of Roman soldiers that were oppressing them.  But Jesus had a far greater plan. He planned to liberate all of us from all oppression for all time.  That’s what we remember on Easter.  We remember the gift of Jesus’ blood covering all our transgressions and setting us free from the tyranny of the devil.  And we are grateful for it.  The prayers of the Jews for a Messiah were answered, just not in the way that they expected.

The swine herders wanted the mad man healed, but didn’t expect it to come at the cost of their livelihood.  We wanted Big David to be healed, but didn’t expect it to come at the cost of his life.  What oppression have you been asking G-d to free you or someone you love from? Have you gotten angry at G-d for not answering?  What if he was answering in a way you didn’t expect?  Jesus is still in the business of freeing people from oppression, just like he freed the madman of the Gerasenes.  But like the swine herders, we need to be prepared for him to do it in unexpected ways.

Purim Potluck

Before I write anything else, let me me make it clear that I am not Jewish, nor were any of my Jewish friends present at this potluck.  There was no offense meant towards any Jews, we were just wanted to have a good time.
So one of my roommates went home for winter break and came back with a very large ham. By "very large" I mean it was likely somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds.  In any case, it was much larger than the three of us could eat on our own.  The obvious solution to this problem was to have a party.  The less obvious part of this solution was figuring out a reason for having a party.  So we googled it. And by "it" I mean holidays in the month of March. Purim was the next closest holiday that was not on a school night (St. Patrick's Day was on a school night. I don't do parties on school nights usually).
Purim is a Jewish celebration in honor of Esther.  Esther was a Jew, who, through a strange set of circumstances ended up the queen to the Persian king. It involved the former queen refusing to dance (potentially naked, the text is ambiguous) before the king and a bunch of his very drunk buddies (they'd bee drinking for about 187 days) and a beauty contest that lasted about 12 months.  After she became queen, without the king knowing she was a Jew, there was a plot to kill all the Jews.  After some prayer and fasting and a couple banquets, an assault on the queen, and a huge gallows being built, the Jews were saved.  So now, every year there is a celebration of all this called Purim.  You can read rest the story in the Book of Esther in the Bible.  It's not very long.  In fact, it is read aloud at Purim celebrations and everyone makes noise when the name of the bad guy is said. Enough of a history lesson.
So we had this ham and we had a reason for a party.  So we decided to make it a potluck (less work for us!) and started inviting people. Potlucks scare me.  They are terrifying, so we found ways to make this as un-terrifying as possible.  We made the ham and Joy-friendly scalloped potatoes and when we set food out we set the GF food at the beginning of the line. That way, there was less chance of cross contamination.  And we asked people to be careful.  I didn't get sick. Which is always a good thing.  I like not getting sick.

LDK is cutting our very large ham.  She is the official meat-cutter in our house.

A very prettyful salad that someone brought

People waiting for the ham to be cut so we could eat.  There was more people, but I got distracted and forgot to take pictures. 

Our Purim cake.  For some reason blogger feels the need to orient it this way.  I don't know why, nor have a figured out a way to fix it.  Apparently they got funny looks at the store when they asked to have "Happy Purim" written on the cake.  Someday, if I'm bored, I will write about the appropriateness of the caterpillar (it's all thought out in my head)

So that is a glimpse of our Purim Potluck.  As life would have it, I did have a seizure in the morning and rearranged my knee a little.  Enough that it hurt and needed braced, but not enough to put me back on crutches. Some of you might recall that last time we had a big party at our house (Canadian Thanksgiving back in October...I don't think I blogged about it, just did facebook photos), I managed to have a seizure and completely dislocate my knee and was (supposed to be) on crutches for the entire preparation. I failed at using my crutches, my knee swelled up like a baseball, and my leg turned purple.  So I guess the moral of the story is, I need to be careful when planning big party type things. :)

The Real Kangaroo

Sorry for causing concern. That was not my intention.
Here is the story about the kangaroo....Every once in awhile my immune system has a major freak out and I go into anaphalptic shock (usually it has a reason for this unreasonable behavior). In the aftermath of such a severe allergic reaction the doctor puts me on prednisone (oral steroids). Steroids are a strange thing and do strange things to a person's body. For me, it makes me feel like I have a kangaroo in my brain. That's really the best way I have to describe it. My brain jumps all over the place. The kangaroo goes crazy. Strange stuff comes out of my mouth. I write strange things on facebook and my blog without thinking about them. I talk really fast. The Kangaroo also gets super hungry and eats lots and lots of food. Sometimes he's grumpy too. Right now he's tired, so I have a bit of peace. the drugs also make me moody. Not fun.
Getting rid of the kangaroo is a long slow process, because if you kick him out too fast he gets super mad and you get super sick. Think drug withdrawal, because that is what it is. The kangaroo will be completely gone on Saturday and that will be a relief.
This is not a great week to be on kangaroo drugs since I will be preaching in church for the first time on Sunday and I'm really struggling with my sermon right now.
So that is the kangaroo story. nothing really to worry about.

Made for Community

I preached this sermon in preaching lab the other day.  I've shared it with a few people and gotten some positive feedback and requests for permission to pass it on, so I decided to to post it here, in the hope that maybe G-d's word would touch at least one life. 
My text was Luke 5: 17-26.

He sat there watching the world go by.  He’d heard his parents talk about a man called Jesus, a man who had made people walk, given sight back to blind people, fed huge crowds with small amounts of food and done all sorts of other marvelous things.  His mother said he should go see this Jesus fellow. The trouble was, he couldn’t go, even if he wanted to.  He was lame; completely paralyzed and unable to go anywhere.  How many years had he been like that? It was more than he could remember. His mama said that when he was a child he used to run and play with the others.  He wished he could remember what life had been like when his legs were not withered and useless, but try as he might, all he could remember was this way of being, this uselessness, this state of being completely unable to help himself. He sighed and wondered what this Jesus-man was like and wished he could go see him for himself, instead of just hearing stories about him. Maybe, if he could get to Jesus, he could find healing.  Maybe then, life would go back to the way it had been before.

He heard someone call his name and he looked up from his musings.  He saw a group of his friends walking excitedly towards him.  As they got closer he listened to what they were saying.  The Jesus-man he had heard so much about was in his town.  His friends had all been to see him. He tried to be happy for them, but in his heart, he wished he had been able to be there with them.  Suddenly, four of them came over and picked up the mat he was laying on and began to carry it down the street.  Rest of his friends followed.  He could see a house up ahead, so full of people that they were spilling out into the street.  “Jesus is there” said his friends.  His heart sank.  He was so close, yet so far away.  There was no way that his friends could maneuver his mat through that crowd so that he could see Jesus. Abruptly, his friends turned away from the door and headed up the steps to the roof. They carried him up the roof and working in the hot sun, made a hole in the roof. Then, they lowered him through the hole, right in front of the Jesus he had heard so much about.  Jesus looked down at him laying on the floor and up at his friends, peering down through the hole in the roof.  And then, the most wonderful thing happened.  Jesus healed him.  He stood up and walked through the crowd, carrying his mat.  He could walk.  This was even better than the before time, because now, he had met Jesus.

How often do we sit like that man and try to remember what life was like?  Maybe we want to remember what life was like before we got sick.  Maybe we want to remember what life was like before our parents got a divorce.  Maybe there was a time before alcohol, or drugs, or pornography, or work, or Facebook took over our lives.  Maybe we wonder if there was ever a time in our lives when we didn’t do battle with depression or bipolar disorder or food.  We try and remember that before time, and maybe sometimes we can get a little glimpse, a fleeting memory, but now, all we know is life the way it is now.  We’ve heard that somewhere, somehow there is healing.  We long for things to be different, to be able to return to that before time, but we don’t know how to get there.

We know the healing is out there.  We’ve heard it talked about it and we’ve longed to experience it ourselves, but we can’t seem to get there on our own.  Maybe we don’t know the way.  Maybe we don’t have the resources to afford it.   Maybe we just need that extra little push forward or the support of a good friend or group of friends.  Verse 20 says that it was when Jesus saw their faith that he healed the paralyzed man.  We were made to live in community, to give help and to accept help.  The paralyzed man could have refused to let his friends help him.  He could have resolved to do it all by himself.  His friends could have refused to help him.  They could have not bothered to make the hole in the roof.  In either case, he would not have made it to Jesus and would not have experienced healing.  Sometimes, we can’t do it on our own. Sometimes we need a friend to carry us along the way to Jesus, so that we can experience healing and go to a place that is even better than the before place that we had longed for.

Amen.

The Artwork

It was an incredible piece of art. Every piece was different.  They were all different shapes and sizes and colors.  They all had their own special qualities.  Despite how different they were every piece fit intricately with every other piece.  One could almost say that it was a living piece of artwork, as the pieces shifted in their relationship to each other as time went on.  Each piece supported every other piece.  Some days it appeared as if all the pieces came together to support one piece.  Other days they supported another.  Some days they were close together.  Other days they drifted apart.  No matter what happened though, all the pieces stayed together and they were beautiful.

Together, they were beautiful.

One day however, one piece decided that she was doing too much.  She felt that she was holding up another piece too much.  She told her that.  She told her that she needed to find other pieces to hold her up.  She wasn’t going to do it anymore.  The piece fell to the ground, shattered and crushed.

She began to doubt that the other pieces were going to hold her up.  Maybe the weight that she brought to the piece of art was too much.  Maybe she didn’t belong. Maybe her shape was too different for this piece of art.

She lay on the floor, full of cracks, her edges chipped.

She hurt.

In her pain she cried out to the Artist, longing to know whether she had any worth left.  She did not know how to exist outside of the piece of art she had been in.  She knew the Artist had a plan for her, but from the floor, with her very being cracked and her edges chipped, she could not fathom what the plan was.  From the floor, from her pain, she felt the Artist gently pick her up.  He held her close to himself, and then, with His infinitely big, and infinitely gentle hand, He pulled back a curtain that hung at the edge of the piece of art.  He held her up so that she could see. 

The new portion of the piece that had just been unveiled was even more beautiful than the portion she had known before.  The Artist indicated a new spot.  It looked different than her old spot.  She looked at Him with confusion.  There was no way that she was going to fit in that spot. Her edges weren’t the right shape. She had too many cracks.

The fall had been hard.

She protested to the Artist, she begged to go back to her old spot.  She knew that place.  She knew how the pieces in that section of the art worked, how they related to her and how she related to them.  She begged Him to let her go back to the place that she knew.

He heard her protests, but being the Artist, He had better plans for her.  He refused to place her back where she had been.  She watched with dismay as the place where she had been began to close over and the other pieces moved around, shifting, holding each other up, without her there.

She felt forgotten.

Slowly, gently the Artist began to polish her.  He smoothed out her rough edges, He repaired her cracks. Very carefully He placed her in the new spot He had planned for her.  At first it was super awkward.  She didn’t know these pieces.  They didn’t know her.  They didn’t know how to interact with each other.  She missed the security of her old position. As time went on they learned how each other moved and worked.  They became their own piece of art.

 And together, they became beautiful.

"Once upon a time..."

"Once upon a time...."  "A long time ago, in a land far away...." "Es war einmal...." "Well, this one time..." "There was once a little boy..." "Einmal geschah eine wunderbare Geschichte..."  "When I was your age..." "Did I ever tell you about the time..." "It was a dark and stormy night..."

What is it about stories?  Stories are so important to us that we have a form for them; all the phrases I started this post with are phrases that signal the start of a story.  Different types of stories, but all stories.  Why?  Why do put so much emphasis on stories? We write them in books and read them to our children before bed, we tell them as we gather around the table for a large meal, we swap them around campfires,  we treasure them in our hearts. 

I think we treasure some stories because the relate directly to us.  Stories about our families, how our grandparents immigrated from the Old World to make a new life here.  Stories about uncles who got into mischief at school.  It makes sense for us to treasure these stories. They help shape who we are because they are about our ancestors.  

We treasure other stories because they relate to our faith heritage.  These are the stories we tell our children in Sunday school, the stories Veggie Tales makes into movies, the ones turned into Arch books - David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lion's Den, Joseph, Joshua and the battle of Jericho, The Christmas story, Easter, the miracles of Jesus... I think we treasure these stories because they tell us something about our G-d, the G-d we serve and love.

But what about the stories that have nothing to do with us?  "Cinderella", "The Velveteen Rabbit", "The Little Engine that Could", "Walter the Farting Dog", "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", "Snow White",  "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", "Oh, Wie Schön ist Panama", the list could go on and on....Why do we treasure these stories?  Some may be for pure enjoyment, others though...I think we hold on to them tighter than we would like entertainment.  And so many of us hold on to the same stories. I think maybe it has to do with what the stories teach us.

I believe that stories have the power to teach in ways that simple words cannot. I could make a list of the qualities of G-d and tell it to my Sunday School class.  They might remember it for an hour (I'm hopeful), but chances are, they would quickly forget it.  I tell them a story where they can see a quality of G-d and the chances of them remembering it increase greatly.  They know that G-d is loving because they've heard stories about how He loves.  I know my Uncle was mischievous because Mom has told me stories about some of the things he has done. 

We hold stories in our hearts and they tell us something. Earlier this summer, under the recommendation of someone I decided to trust, I began to read "Waking the Dead" by John Eldredge.  (PS:  I highly recommend this book).  Eldredge talks about how myths are some of the truest stories we know.  At first I balked at that. How could myths be true?  But then, after wrestling with it for a time, I realized what he was saying.  Myths and fairy stories are true in the sense that we hold them in our hearts and they speak to the deep parts of us.  I don't have the words to explain quite what I mean.  Read Eldredge's book or wrestle with it yourself.  I think you will find that the stories you treasure most often speak to a deep place in your heart.  I know it's true for me. 

Lessons from brokenness

Sometimes I take a picture because it really speaks to me and then I decide that I want to share it with everyone who takes the time to read my ramblings.
So here's the picture:

Actually, you get more than one picture because I couldn't pick which one I wanted to use.

So, here's the thing.  I don't know the story of this tree.  It's likely older than I am.  But by looking at it I can guess some of its story.  It's kind of like reading a book, just without words.  Once upon a time I imagine that this tree was growing up big and strong.  It was probably just minding it's own business when something happened.  What that something was, I have no idea.  Maybe it was a big wind. Maybe it was lightening.  Maybe it was ice.  I'd suggest hurricane (see Love is... for my thoughts about trees and hurricanes), but I know where this tree lives and a hurricane is highly unlikely. Whatever it was, it broke the tree.  The tree bent right over at a 90 degree angle. I can't say whether trees have feeling or not, but anthropomorphize with me here for a moment and imagine that the tree does have feelings.  Being broken like that would hurt.  It would hurt a lot.  That's kind of a big deal.  I mean, one day the tree was big and strong, the next it was bent over and hurting.
Continuing to anthropomorphize, the tree had a choice here.  It could have given up and died.  That would have been easy.  It was hurting, it was broken, life as it had been was over.  What purpose was there in going on?  Or the tree could decide to try and make the best of it's new situation.  It could reach towards the light.  It wasn't going to be easy.  The tree was used to reaching up to the sky for light, for the very light that it turned into food, the light that sustained.  Now it was going to have to go in a new direction and reach out, out over the edge of the gorge and towards what little light it could see.  This was much harder.  The tree wasn't used to supporting its weight in a horizontal fashion.  It had never intended to grow this way.
From the picture you can see which choice the tree made.  It continued to grow and over time, its wound began to heal. Look at the first picture.  The bark has healed over the original wound.  New bark has been formed.  It wasn't easy and it took time, but it happened.
It made me think about my life.  Sometimes "something" happens and it hurts.  It hurts a lot and I have to make a choice.  I can either give up and quit, or I can keep going, keep fighting, keep struggling to reach towards the light and the life that it gives. Sometimes the "something" is really big and it hurts more than I think I can bear, but I serve a G-d who cares for me, even more than he cares for the trees (check out Mathew 6). No matter how bad the "something" is, He is going to provide the healing.  This is something I can rest in.

PS: I was trying to find a song to go with this, but I couldn't remember/find the one that spoke my heart, so no song.  Sorry!

Lentil Lessons

Today Mom and I went in to the City to get some grocery shopping done.  We had a long list of places we needed to go and things we needed to get.  One of our stops was Bulk Barn, a delightful store where you can get most anything in bulk.  We often order very bulk quanties of flour, sugar and oats from them, but today we were there for "small" bulk (no more than 15 pounds of any one thing).  One of the items on our list was lentils.  We found the lentil bin and it looked like it was almost full.  Mom held the bag while I scooped.  I scooped and scooped and scooped.  Every once in a while I'd glance up at the top of the gravity bin and notice that no matter how much I scooped it didn't appear to be going down at all.  Mom noticed to and warned me that when it decided to give, it would give all at once and we would be flooded with lentils.  They must be stuck further up.  I scooped until there were no more to scoop and still the flood of lentils hadn't come down.  We closed the bin and shook it and banged on it (gently of course, but with force) and still the lentils wouldn't come down.  Finally I looked closer at it.  The gravity bin had a false front.  No matter what we did, we were not going to get those lentils to come down.  The bin was empty.  The false front had led us to believe that there were more there than were really there.

As I thought about it more, I remembered how we had discovered we were out of lentils.  Early last week, when we were discussing supper plans, mom suggested that I make honey baked lentils, since we had a big bucket of lentils in the fruit cellar. I had seen the lentils down there as well so I agreed and we began prep work.  I went down the cellar and picked up the bucket labeled (very clearly in two spots) lentils.  I gave it a shake.  It didn't feel like lentils or make very lentil-like noises.  It sounded an awful lot like pasta (pasta makes a loud noise when it is in a plastic bucket, lentil hardly make any as far as I can tell).  I opened the lid and sure enough it was a bucket of rice pasta.  I checked rest the buckets and they all had what they said they had in them.  I came upstairs and reported my findings to mom.  The bucket was mislabeled, we did not have any lentils.  We thought real hard for about 30 seconds and then decided that split peas were almost like lentils and we would make honey baked peas instead (the "we" in this case being mainly me).  The peas were on the top shelf so I sent R down to get them down for me and he brought them to me and supper was saved.  The bucket labeled lentils had been a type of false front.

The more I thought, the more thoughts I had. This false front thing seemed like a theme that I was supposed to be thinking on more.  I started asking myself if I knew any Bible passages about lentils (when I get in a thinking mood it generally seems to be a good idea to look to the Bible).  I thought of one right away.  Way back in Genesis, there is a story of two brothers, Jacob and Esau.  They were twins and as different from one another as night and day.  Jacob was a mama's boy and Esau loved to hunt.  One day, Esau had come in from a long hunting trip and was very hungry.  He was a yougn man, so he was likely always hungry, but he was especially hungry on this day.  Jacob had spent all day in the kitchen cooking and had a pot of lentil stew simmering away over the fire.  The smell was amazing and Esau, believing he would soon die from hunger demanded a bowl of the lentil stew.  Jacob, being a nice twin brother, agreed to give it to him, on the condition that Esau swore to let him have the blessing reserved for the oldest child (aka, the birthright).  Esau was the older of the two twins, but not by much.  Esau, being young, foolish, and hungry agreed.  Esau sold his blessing for a bowl of lentil stew.   Many years later when their father, Isaac, was dying, Jacob dressed up like Esau and tricked his father into believing he was Esau so that Isaac gave him the blessing.  (Isaac either did not know about or did not approve of the selling of the birth right for a bowl of soup).  Once again, lentils were paired with deception and false pretenses.

I wasn't satisfied to stop there, so I opened up my super cool Bible search software that my parents got me for graduation (Thanks mom and dad!) and did a search on the term "lentil*".  The story from Genesis of Jacob and Esau and the birthright popped up, but so did a story from 2nd Samuel 23.  It was a more obscure passage (at least to my mind...I need to work on my OT history) so I had to spend some time reading around it to get my mind into the right place.  In 2 Samuel 23 the author tells of  King David's might men: Josheb-Basshebeth, Eleazer son of Dodai the Ahohite, and Shammah son of Agee the Hararite.  If you were a king going into battle for the Lord, these are the people you wanted on your side.  They knew who was on their side (G-d) and they were prepared to take a stand for G-d, no matter what the cost.  The story that involved lentils spans all of 2 verses (11 & 12) and is short enough that I will put it here:
2 Samuel 23:11-12 (NIV)

Next to him was Shammah son of Agee the Hararite. When the Philistines banded together at a place where there was a field full of lentils, Israel's troops fled from them. But Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. He defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the Lord brought about a great victory.
This time the lentils don't play any big role, they were just there.  And where the lentils were, Israel's troops believed the lie that G-d was not with them and would not help them concur the Philistines.  So they ran away scared.  Except of course for Shammah.  He believed G-d's truth and stood his ground (in the lentils) and fought the Philistines.

I'm not sure I 'm ever going to look at lentils the same way again.  I think they will serve as a good reminder not only of how tricky deception and false fronts can be, but that also, like Shamah, I can stand even when others believe the lies, because no matter what, G-d is on my side.

Story Time: Joseph, Part 4- Out of the Pit

It's been awhile since I've visited Joseph.  When we last left him (back in February) he was in the pit his brothers had thrown him into.  If you want a refresher on any part of the story, you can check out part 1, part 2, or part 3. 

Part 4
Joseph sat at the bottom of the pit.  How could this have happened to him?  How could his brothers have been so cruel?  What was going to happen to him next?  So many questions, so few answers.
He listened hard to what was going on above him.  He could hear his brothers starting to settle down and eat.  His stomach growled. 
"Hey guys!  Can I have some food?"  no reply from his brothers.  "Please?  I'm hungry..."  still no reply.  It was as if he wasn't there.  Had they already forgotten about him?
Suddenly the sounds above him changed.  What was going on?  He wished he could see or at least hear well enough to know what was happening...
Suddenly a rope was lowered into the pit.  He grabbed on to it and soon he was being pulled up.  He breathed a sigh of relief.  His brothers had come to their sense and were going to let him have some food and life was going to go on, with them hating him as usual and him being his father's favorite.  His head cleared the top of the cistern and his heart stopped.  There were more people there than just his brothers.  There was a whole caravan of people there.  Midianites by the looks of them.  Why were his brother's pulling him up with them there?  Surely they weren't going to...
He was out of the cistern now and his brothers were tying him up.  The Midianites were pointing and talking rapidly amongst themselves.  They seemed pleased.  This wasn't happening, this couldn't be happening.  Surely his brothers weren't selling him to the Midianites.  Not his own brothers!
Before he could process what was happening to him, he was tied behind a camel and walking away from his brothers.  The sun was hot and shone down on him without mercy.  What was going to happen to him?  Where were the Midianites taking him? How could his brothers do this to him?  What about his dreams?  What about them bowing down to him?

That's all for tonight.  Theoretically, now that I'm home I can write more regularly about Joseph...of course this is just a theory and might not be incredibly reliable, but we'll pick up with Joseph again next time.

Luke 8:22-25, with paintings

A couple weeks ago I was at a bi-monthly gathering called Encounter: I Am.  Encounter: I Am is basically a bunch of people from a bunch of different denominations and places in life hanging out corporately with Jesus. I've gone a number of times since last semester and it's pretty neat.  Anyhow, as part of the evening we spend some time reflecting in depth on scripture.  The text that week was from Luke 8:22-25.  (Story Time!)
Jesus and his disciples were in a boat crossing the sea.  Jesus was pretty tired after a long day of preaching and caring for people so he laid down to take a nap.  A bunch of his disciples were ex-fishermen, so he was in good hands. However, while Jesus was napping a storm happened.  His disciples freaked out.  Big time freak out. Not only did none of them know how to swim, they were out in the  middle of a lake.  Their belief system had taught them that the kindgom of darkness resided at the bottom of still bodies of water such as lakes.  Not only were they likely to drown, they were going to drown right into the kindgom of darkness.  Not cool.  However, they had been walking with Jesus for awhile and had figured out that he was a pretty cool guy and could do stuff.  So they woke him up.  Now Jesus is awake and the disciples are freaking out. "Jesus!  We're going to drown!  Do you care?  How can you stay asleep?"  (There were 12 disciples...so probably all 12 of them were talking all at once)  Jesus looks at them and I can just imagine the look in his eyes as he says "Where is your faith?"  Then, being the cool guy that he is, he raises his arms and tells the wind and the waves to be quiet.  Bam!  The storm is over.  We don't read it in Luke, but in one of the other Gospels the words that Jesus says are the same words that he uses when he casts out demons.  I imagine the disciples just looking at each other in awe and wonder...even the wind and the waves obey him....
Anyhow, we spent a lot of time with this passage and asked G-d to show us where we were in the story.  While we were thinking deeply about the story and praying through it, I grabbed an index card from my bag and made a couple sketches, sketches of what the story meant for me.  I sat on them for about a week.  Then I decided to put them to paint.  Here's the results:

(The green on the right says: Lean not on your own understanding; Depend not on your own strength.)

Sometimes life throws us curveballs.  Sometimes there are storms and we are afraid we are going to drown.  Sometimes I don't know how much longer I can keep my head above the water. Sometimes, like the disciples I cry out to Jesus and ask him if he really cares about me, if he cares that I am drowning.  Then I can feel him looking at me and asking me where my faith is and reminding me that I don't need to depend on my own strength.  Then in a display of his power:

Not in my power, not because I want the storm to end, but because Jesus commands the storm to end.  His power ends it all. And in his power I can rest:

(from left to right the text reads:  Rest in ME. I have this all under control.,  My hand is holding you., I will fight for you.,  You are MY girl worth fighting for., I will never let you go.)

No matter what happens, my Jesus is strong enough to end the storm and I can rest in His arms. There might be clouds in the sky, life might get rough, but I don't need to be afraid.  Not ever.  He's got me and I am His girl worth fighting for.

How to Write a Paper (in 45 simple steps)

Remember, if you are viewing this post through facebook notes you need to click "view original post" in order to see the entire note...


As a college student I often have to write papers.  I have a feeling most college students find themselves in this place frequently.  So a little "how-to"....
1. Put on your painting clothes.  Paper writing could get messy.
2. Turn on some fun tunes.
3. Open a word processor and type a title.
4. Make a sketch of your next painted masterpiece.
5.  Have a snack.  Paper writing is hungry work.
6. Write a few sentences.
7. Gaze longingly out the window at the beautiful weather.
8. Go on facebook and update your status.  Something about how awful it is that you have to write this paper.
9. Erase what you've written and start again.
10. Work on your painting.
11. Go on facebook and check your groups.  Someone may have posted an important question.
12. Type a few sentences.
13.  Have a snack.
14.  Go upstairs and give your friends hugs.  After all, it takes 4 hugs a day just to survive...
15.  Rewrite your title.  After all, the title is the most important part of the paper (Especially if Joe B. is your prof)
16.  Go on YouTube and check out the video that everyone was talking about in class.
17. Get inspired and type a whole paragraph.
18.  Realize that your paint has dried enough that you can do the next step. Paint some more.
19.  Go outside and chase a few squirrels, just for fun.
20.  Go to lunch for a couple hours.
21.  Panic over how little you've accomplished and type diligently for about 5 minutes.
22.  Go on facebook and read everyone's status updates.
23.  Facebook chat.
24. Do some more painting.
25. Type some more on your paper.
26. Grab a friend and go for a walk (or watch a movie, depending on the weather)
27.  Nap time. Paper writing is exhausting!
28.  Go on facebook and look at everyone's photos from last weekend.
29. Type a few more sentences.
30. Read children's books to your friends.  They needed a study break.
31. Check all your friends' blogs.  You might miss something important if you don't.
32. Decide to make a blog post of your own.
33.  Go to supper.  Spend a couple hours there.
34. Resolve to work on your paper and nothing else until it is done.
35. Watch the sunset and take pictures.
36.  Post the pictures on facebook.
37. Realize your paper is due in the morning and you have wasted the entire day.  Panic, close facebook and all forms of IM.
38.  Eat a snack.
39. Get bored with your paper and go on facebook to see who else is still up working on papers.
40. Do some detail work on your painting. (you need a study break every once in awhile)
41. Finish your paper, go to the lab to print it, realize the printer is out of paper, decide to print it in the morning and go to bed.
42. Stumble into class with your freshly printed paper and eyes half open.
43. Turn in paper.
44. Vow never to procrastinate on a paper again.
45. Repeat.

Randomness

This may potentially be the most disjointed post I have typed in awhile, but I'm gonna have a go at it anyways.
- My mom is amazing.  This week she mailed me my days of the week shirts.  For those of you who haven't met them before, they are t-shirts that have the days of the week painted on them.  One shirt for each day and one shirt with question marks for when I forget which day it is (or if the correct shirt is dirty or if I just want to mess with people).  Now, ideally, I will know what day it is and actually go to the right classes/committments.
- The first eight crayons of the crayon blanket are finished and it is time for me to start sewing them together.  In this theme, I have amazing friends who help me out with colors and the order has been narrowed down to pretty much two options: red, yellow, blue, light purple, pink, dark purple, green, orange OR yellow, green, blue, dark purple, light purple, pink, orange, red.   Currently the second order has the most votes.  Opinions are welcome.  To see a picture of the colors click here (option 2 in the picture has been almost voted out...it's pretty much between options 1 and 3) (OR if you are reading this on facebook just click over to my "What do I actually do at school? Spring 2010" album to see the picture)  Opinions are welcome.
- This semester is going way too fast.  I choose not to think any further on this.
- Tea and Tales on Tuesdays and Thursdays is pretty  much a highlight of my week.  Especially when Sara reads the story to us and it has duck noises and she makes really cool duck noises.
- My last reference for Western was submitted yesterday, so now it's just waiting.  Hopefully not too much longer...
- I graduate in May and have no idea what I am going to do for the summer.  Suggestions for jobs are welcome.  Especially suggestions for cool jobs.
- Some nights you just need to cuddle and cry with someone.  Then you feel better.
- I really really miss camp today.
- Winter can go away at any point now so that it is warm enough for me to go look at stars.
- Spring break comes soon and I need to decide what I am going to do for it.
- I really should get back to writing my paper so that I can do more reading so that I can crochet while I read (I can't type and crochet at the same time)
- I love my friends.  A lot.
- Chicken broth has magical properties.  So does sleep.
- Sometimes you have to be broken before you can be healed.
- I still really want to go swimming.

Story Time: Joseph, Part 3-On the Way to Bad

When we last left Joseph he was on his way to Shechem to check up on his brothers. His brothers were very jealous of him because Jacob loved him more than them. To make things worse, Joseph had had some crazy dreams in which he dominated over his brothers.


Part 3
Joseph walked and walked and walked. Eventually he came to Shechem and began to look for his brothers. He looked in all the usual places, but he couldn’t find them. Such a large herd of sheep (it must have been large because all 10 of his brothers were watching it) is hard to misplace so Joseph must have been rather confused and puzzled. A man saw Joseph looking and asked him what he was looking for. Joseph told him that he was looking for his 10 brothers and their sheep. The man had seen Joseph’s brothers and had even overheard them talking to each other. They had finished grazing at Shechem and moved on to Dothan. Joseph sighed and changed his course. He had to find his brothers. His father had told him to.
He walked on, lost in his own world.
As he walked his brothers noticed him coming and their jealousy rose. As brothers are prone to do, they began to plot about how to get even with him. After all, they were far enough away from their father that he would not know what they were doing. And as things are prone to do, they got out of hand. What may have first started as an innocent prank quickly escalated to a plot to kill Joseph. I am glad that these were not my brothers…I would have been dead many times over by now. I imagine their conversation started innocently enough. “Let’s throw dirt at him” “How about we steal his coat and throw it in the mud” and then somehow, someway, it ended at “Let’s kill that dreamer!”
Thankfully for Joseph, his older brother Reuben did not get caught up in the fervor and provided a voice of reason. “Let’s not kill him.” (good plan Reuben) “Let’s just throw him in this old dry deep hole. That’ll teach him a lesson and we won’t have to kill him. Sound like a plan?” The other nine agreed and Reuben breathed a sigh of relief. That had been too close for comfort.
Joseph got closer.
As soon as he reached his brothers they attacked him. All their anger and resentment and jealousy towards him spilled out. I have never been attacked by ten guys at once, but I can’t imagine it was pleasant. I also don’t imagine that Joseph willingly let himself been attacked. It must have been quite a brawl and very unfair. 10 brothers against 1, and he was younger than all of them to boot, means that the 10 likely won fairly easily.
After they had subdued Joseph they ripped his beautiful coat off of him. This coat (talked about in part 2) represented everything they hated so much about him. After they ripped his coat off, they picked him up and chucked him into the deep dry hole. Joseph hit the bottom with a thump. How could his brothers do this to him? They were his family after all! And what about his dreams? Weren’t they supposed to bow down to him? Surely they would pull him out soon…They certainly wouldn’t leave him there, would they?

So, Joseph is in the pit.  Things are bad.  That's where I'm going to leave him for now.  I really ought to be writing my paper, but I didn't want to leave Joseph alone too long.  It was a long journey to Shechem after all. :)

Story Time: Jospeh, Part 2 - Crazy Dreams

Time for part two of my retelling of the Joseph story. When we left Joseph last time we had learned about his siblings (all 11 of them) and the conflicts that existed between Jacob’s wives. We also learned that Joseph and his brother Benjamin were Jacob’s favorite sons.


Part 2
Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons. We know that Jacob played favorites with his wives, so it’s no surprise that he also played favorites with his sons. He was very obvious about his favoritism and really didn’t try to hide it. One day he gave Joseph a beautiful coat. The Bible says that it was richly ornamented. Traditionally we called it a coat of many colors. The exact specifications of this coat are unimportant. What is important is that it was a very clear indication that Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons. To make matters worse, Joseph was a bit of a tattletale. There is nothing like tattling to make your siblings hate you. Trust me on this one…I’ve only got half as many siblings as Joseph, but I know a thing or two about tattling and sibling rivalry. So, after Joseph tattled on his brothers shepherding skills, they were all hanging out around the “base camp”. Joseph started having dreams. Today there are a variety of views on the importance of dreams. Some people think we can actually learn stuff from the dreams others believe they are just the by-products of our imaginations. However, in Joseph’s time, dreams were mucho-important.
Joseph has this dream and decides to tell his brothers about it. Imagine this: They are all sitting out in the sheepfold, maybe around a small fire for warmth (it gets cold in the desert at night). The conversation lulls a bit as they all drift off to that land that is half way between sleeping and being awake. The time that is perfect for deep, intellectual conversation. The flames of the fire play across their faces. Joseph speaks. “Hey guys. I had this dream the other night. Wanna hear about it?” His brothers grunt noncommittally as boys are apt to do. Joseph takes the noncommittal grunts as an affirmative and begins to tell about his dream. “So, we were all out harvesting the grain one day. All 12 of us were there. We were binding the grain into sheaves (a sheath of grain is basically just a bundle of grain tied around the middle with a piece of fiber. In groups of three or more they can be made to stand upright like little tiny haystacks. Sheaves are then stacked into bigger piles to store for the off season). All of a sudden my sheath left my hands, moved away from me and stood upright. All by itself. Then, the sheaves that each of you were working on also left you and came over by mine. Instead of standing up though, they bowed down to my sheath. It was weird.”
His brothers are more awake now. Their indignation rang out. “What!??!” “You think we are going to bow down to you?” “If we bowed to anybody it would be Reuben. He’s the oldest” “You’re such a dreamer.” “Go to sleep you little twit and don’t get any grandiose ideas about yourself.” Slowly, after making snide comments to each other, silence settles back over the group and one by one they drift off to sleep.
The next night the same thing happened. They were sitting around the fire, drifting off to sleep when Joseph decided to tell them about his other dream. This time, instead of being out in the field binding grain they were up in the heavens. Joseph himself was some sort of celestial body, his brothers were stars and his parents were the sun and moon. Once again everything bowed down to Joseph. Once again his brothers ridiculed him and called him names.
The next morning he decided to tell Jacob about the dream. His father loved him very much. Surely he would not ridicule him for his dream. Wrong. Jacob flipped out. His blood pressure rose. “What are you talking about Joseph? This dream of yours? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you? You are talking crazy. Stop this foolishness.”
His brothers who had overheard this exchange shot self-satisfied looks to each other. Their father agreed. This was foolish talk. His father however tucked this away into the recesses of his mind. He’d seen some pretty crazy stuff. Heck, he’d even wrestled with YHWH himself back in the day. Anything was possible.
Some time passed and Jacob sent his sons, except for Benjamin and Joseph, out to a place called Shechem to find better pasture for the sheep. This added to the jealousy of Joseph’s brothers. They had to go work and Joseph got to stay home. Such a pet.
Some time later Jacob decided to send Joseph to Shechem to check up on his brothers and the flocks. He gave him some provisions for the journey and supplies to bring to his brothers and Joseph went on his way.

That’s all for now.  :) More later.

Story Time: Joseph, part 1

Over the last few days I’ve been reading the stories of Joseph. Those of you at Central who have been doing Bible in a Year have been reading the same stuff. Joseph is another one of my favorite stories to tell and I had so much fun doing the telling of Exodus 17:8-15 that I decided to do Joseph as well. Joseph’s story starts in Genesis 29 and goes through chapter 50, with lots of sides stories thrown in for good measure, so, in an effort not to overwhelm you or myself, I’ll tell this story in parts.

Part 1
Joseph’s story starts with his father Jacob (also known as Israel). His story actually starts before then with the story of Jacob’s father, Isaac, whose story starts with the story of his father, Abraham, whose story starts…you get the picture.
Now, for reasons we aren’t going to discuss here (it has to do with deception and trickery and a death threat), Jacob was living away from his immediate family. He was living with a relative named Laban. (Laban was Jacob’s mother’s brother…so his uncle). Jacob had been living with Laban and working for him for some time when he fell in love with his cousin, Rachel who was very beautiful. Laban offered to pay Jacob for the work he had been doing so Jacob and Laban made a deal in which Jacob would work for Laban in exchange for Rachel. This sounds rather crazy today to our Western minds – working in exchange for a wife, and that wife being your cousin – but that is the way things were done there and there was nothing wrong with it. Laban agreed to the deal and seven years later there was a wedding. Laban however was not the most honest person. Either that or his desire for honor overcame his honesty. For whatever reason he did not hold up his end of the deal. When Jacob woke up in the morning after his first night as a married man, his wife took off her veil (he hadn’t seen her yet due to Jewish custom) and instead of beautiful Rachel being there, it was her older sister Leah, who was not as beautiful in Jacob’s eyes. (In Laban’s family it went against custom to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one was married) Jacob was pretty upset with having been tricked, although it kind of served him right since he had tricked his twin brother out of both his birthright and his father’s blessing, but that’s another story. So Laban and Jacob struck another deal – another seven years of work and then Jacob would get Rachel, the beautiful sister he loved. This time there was no trick and he married Rachel. So after 14 years of work Jacob has married his cousins, the sisters Leah and Rachel. Being married to more than one person was not frowned upon then as much as it is now.
Leah had a servant named Zilpah and Rachel’s servant was named Bihlah. They’ll become more important in a little bit.
Now even though adults tell us they don’t play favorites, they do. Even Jacob did. It was very obvious to everyone that he loved Rachel more than he loved Leah. Now YHWH knew that Jacob didn’t love Leah, so to make up for it, he decided to bless Leah with children, while not allowing Rachel to have children. One after another Leah had four sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah.
This frustrated Rachel who had not had any children yet. I can imagine that there was a little bit of sibling rivalry going on between Rachel and Leah. So, since she wasn’t able to have children she gave her servant Bilhah to Jacob so that he could make babies with her. This is another ancient Jewish tradition. Since Bilhah belonged to Rachel, any babies that she had would belong to Rachel. So Bilhah had a son and Rachel named him Dan. Then Bilhah had another son, whom Rachel named Naphtali.
So at this point Leah has four sons (Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah) and Rachel has two sons through Bilhah (Dan and Naphtali).
Leah wants to get in on the action so she gives her servant, Zilpah to Jacob. Just like with Bilhah, any children that Zilpah has will belong to Leah. Zilpah’s first son was named Gad and her second was named Asher.
Now things are really rolling. There’s a battle going on between Rachel and Leah to see who can bear Jacob the most children. At one point they even make a deal with each other along the lines of “if you do this for me you can sleep with Jacob”. I wonder how Jacob felt to be in the middle of all this, but I’m not a man, so I have no idea.
Leah had two more sons and a daughter – Isachar, Zebulun, and Dinah.
Then Rachel got a turn again and gave birth to Joseph, the main character in our story.
A bunch of stuff happened, including Jacob leaving Laban and being reunited with his brother Esau, Rachel stealing Laban’s gods, Dinah being violated and whole bunch of people being circumcised and then killed and some pretty cool meetings with YHWH.  If this was a story about Jacob, I'd tell these parts, but it's about Joseph, so these parts aren't as important for this story.
After all this Rachel finally had another son, Benjamin. Unfortunately, Rachel died while giving birth to Benjamin.
So in total Jacob had 12 sons (in order): Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Isachar, Zeubulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. He also had one daughter, Dinah.
Since Rachel herself had born Joseph and Benjamin, they were Jacob’s favorites, which made them the least favorite of all the others. Which, as you can imagine, caused some problems.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more later!

Story time: Exodus 17:8-15

As we gathered to worship on Sunday night Pastor Joe read a story to us from Exodus 17. I knew the story and as he read it my mind began to craft the words into a story like what I used to tell on the bridge at Manitoqua. I don’t have a bridge with children here to tell the story to, so I’ll do my best to write it out and share it with all of you. Enjoy!


A long long time ago in a land called Rephidim there were two nations, Israel and the Amalekites. Israel was led by Moses and his trusty sidekick Joshua and the Amalekites were let by Amalek. Something happened and the two nations had a disagreement. We don’t know exactly what they were disagreeing over, but we do know that water was scarce there, so let’s pretend they were fighting over water. G-d had just done a miracle through Moses in which Moses struck a rock with his staff and water came out of it, but that is a story for another day.

So, the Amalekites and the Israelites drew up lines for battle. The battle was going to be fought in a valley between two hills. In the division of labor of the Israelite nation, Joshua fought with the troops and Moses was the big head commander person. Moses gave Joshua his instructions. He was to go down into the valley with the Israelites on the following day and fight the Amalekites. Moses himself was going to stand on top the hill and hold his staff above his head. This must have sounded rather strange to Joshua and I imagine it even sounded strange to Moses. After all, he was taking his instructions from YHWH and YHWH didn’t always give the clearest instructions, at least not instructions that make sense (like hitting a rock with a stick to get water).

Early the next morning Joshua took the Israelite army down into the battle to fight the Amalekites. Moses went up on the hill and took his two friends, Aaron and Hur with him. They got to the top of the mountain and as the battle started, Moses raised his staff above his head, just as YHWH had instructed him to. Things were looking good down in the valley. The Israelites were winning. G-d was definitely on their side. After a while Moses’ arms began to hurt. You try and hold a stick over your head and see what happens! They began to burn and started to shake. He wanted nothing more than to lower them down and rest, but YHWH had told him that he had to keep them up. He bit his lip and tears ran down his face. How long did YHWH want him to hold this staff up? And what was the purpose? The time continued to pass and even though he tried hard his arms began to droop. He couldn’t do it any longer. As the staff started to fall something changed in the battle in the valley. The lower the staff got the worse the Israelites did. When the staff wasn’t in the air, the Amalekites were winning! Moses knew that if the Israelites were going to win he had to keep the staff in the air. He raised his arms again and the battle turned around again. The Israelites were winning! Moses’ arms grew so tired though. Thankfully his friends Aaron and Hur figured out what was happening and were very resourceful. They knew that Moses couldn’t keep his arms above his head all day, at least not by himself. Quickly they found a large rock and had Moses sit down on it. Then, Aaron went to one side of him and Hur to the other. Each of them took and arm and held it up. For the rest of the day they stayed with Moses and held his arms up. It wasn’t exciting, it wasn’t glamorous. It was long and boring, but very necessary. At the end of the day, the Israelites had won the battle as sure as the sky is blue.

As the troops returned from the battle they did the typical Israelite thing and made an altar and praised YHWH for giving them the victory. With the help of his friends, Moses had been able to follow YHWH’s instructions.

Those of you who know me well know that I like to do things myself. Some of you even call me stubborn. There is nothing wrong with being independent except for the fact that we weren’t created to be islands unto ourselves. Each of us is fighting a battle of our own and it may look different for everyone, but the one thing that is the same about it is that we can’t fight the battle by ourselves. In the 48 hours since coming back to campus I’ve been reminded of this again and again. I can’t do life on my own. Yes , I have G-d and he is always with me, but I also need you—my friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. And you all need your friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. Together we can fight the battles of life. We can hold each other’s arms up like Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ arms.  And I am willing to hazard a guess that it won’t look quite the same as it did in Exodus 17 and that it won’t even look the same for each situation. Somedays it might look like praying with a friend or for a friend, lifting them up to the Lord. Somedays it might look like having a meal with a friend and listening to them talk about what is going on in their life. Somedays it might look like going on a walk, or driving someone to Walmart, or sending an encouraging e-mail, or attending corporate worship, or giving a hug, or giving someone space to be vulnerable, or or or…the possibilities are endless.

Who’s arms are you going to hold up?

Through the Roof

I returned home from the hospital yesterday with some news that is both good and disappointing at the same time.  The good news is that they did not find anything on my EEG or ECG while I was in the hospital.  The disappointing news is that they did not find anything on my EEG or ECG while I was in the hospital.    Having a clean EEG and ECG is a good thing because it means there is nothing wrong with my brain or heart.  It's disappointing because it means the doctors have no idea what is wrong with me.  We have no more answers than we did when I went in to hospital a week ago.  The diagnosis that has been applied to me is "psychogenic non-epilipetic seizures" or PNES. 
Dr. B (my neurologist) and Dr. D (the psychiatrist) told me that in about 50% of people with PNES the seizures are a manifestation of depression or anxiety, however, neither Dr. B nor Dr. D see any signs of depression or anxiety in me. A conclusion with which I agree. This means that I’m in the other 50%. This 50% is the category of people for which medical professionals have no answers at all. Many cases of PNES will disappear on their own. The others persist. There is no known reason why some cases disappear and others linger. There is also no projected time frame.

All this basically means we are at a dead end as far as the seizures go.  There is no next step at this point.  Being completely honest, it is hard not to be discouraged at this.  It's hard to focus on the positive.   While I was in the shower this morning, trying yet again to get the EEG glue out of my hair (nasty stuff) I was reflecting on this "dead end" and praying about it.  G-d brought a story to my mind.  It's from Luke 5: 17-26.  The part that really stood out to me was verses 17-19.   For those of you unfamiliar with the story it is about this man who was paralyzed since birth.  He had never been able to walk.  He had some awesome friends who heard that Jesus was in the neighborhood.  They decided to take him to see Jesus so that Jesus could heal him.  They wanted their answers.  They wanted the problem fixed.  They carried him to Jesus, however when they got to the house where Jesus was teaching they couldn't get to Him.  There were too many people between them and Jesus, their hope.  I can't know exactly what was going through their heads when their way was blocked, but I imagine that they weren't overly impressed.  This was not how things were supposed to go.   Mark 2 tells us that there were at least 4 men carrying the paralyzed men.  I imagine that at least one of them was ready to give up.  There were just too many obstacles.  Then one of them got an idea.  What if they went up on the roof, took it apart and lowered their friend in, through the roof?   It's a crazy idea.  This is probably a stranger's house and they are going to go up, on the roof and take it apart.  I wonder how long it took him to convince the others that this was a good idea, their only chance.  He must of been convincing because we know that they did go on the roof, take it apart and lower their friend in.  Luke tells us that Jesus was "saw their faith" and as a result, healed the paralyzed man. 
These men were looking at tough situation, one that wasn't going the way they wanted it to go or the way they thought it should.  They most likely did not leave home that morning with the intention of taking apart a roof and lowering their friend through it.  It wasn't conventional.  It was a crazy idea that took a lot of faith.  It was a crazy idea that was a perfect part of G-d's plan (Jesus used this situation to express His authority. see verses 20-24). 

The conventional and ordinary plan was for me to go to the hospital and for the doctors to figure out what was wrong with me and fix it.   However, this wasn't G-d's plan.  Somewhere there is a roof that I need to go through.   G-d's got a plan for this that is bigger than the conventional, easy plan and He's going to be glorified through it.  After Jesus healed the paralyzed man "Everyone was amazed and gave praise to G-d. They were filled with awe and said, "We have seen remarkable things today."" (Luke 5:26). 
I don't know where or what my roof is, but I do know that I have amazing friends who will journey with me and I know that I have an amazing G-d who has a plan for all of this.   Who's coming through the roof with me?

As a side note, at a prayer meeting before semester break, someone spoke this story over me as a word from G-d intended for me. I didn't understand at the time, but I do now.  G-d has had this planned way long ago.   "All the days ordained for me were written in [G-d's] book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:16