"No Man is an Island" Still Rings True Today

Further Update: Andrew died today, Saturday afternoon. After all the suffering and slowness of his final time here, the only sorrow is how we remaining will miss him; it's sure that he is happier now, free from harm, rejoicing in heaven with his Savior. Even so, I write with tears, Hallelujah!
Update: As of today, Saturday 2/7, Andrew is still in the hospital, incredibly hanging on. After our Bible study it occurred to me that as unlikely as it seems, it is possible that God could choose to heal him completely from all his troubles. The longer he hangs on the more I ponder this...Is my faith that great? Yet it is not based on the greatness of my faith but the absoluteness of God's power and His will. I pray that His will might be that we all be astonished at a miraculous recovery. Yet not what I will...and yet, I cling to a hope, a feeble hope.
Tonight after Bible study I updated Pastor Ken about a friend of ours who had mouth cancer...Andrew, a man about 28 years old, with a wife Grace and two little children, AJ and Gracie. Today, I believe, he passed away after about two years of a very difficult battle with the disease--I'm not sure that he actually did die yet, because he lives far away and the report was that he was on his way to the hospital at 1:30 a.m. and not expected to live much longer; last I had specifically heard, he was still lingering into the afternoon, but his earthly outlook was not hopeful. Thankfully, he was a strong believer and glorified God to the best of his ability throughout it all. I am confident that he is face to face with Jesus now and no longer suffering the pain that he endured here.
Pastor Ken asked me whether we were close friends. I hadn't really thought of it in terms of that until tonight. Well, I guess not. Katie had babysat for them, we'd sat at the same Sunday school table in our old church, we'd had them over, and they'd had us over, and I'd tried to help them on a few occasions before they moved. But since they'd moved, I'd read and commented on their blog, but hadn't heard from them directly. I'm not saying they should have contacted us. They had a great many friends in this area, in California, and where they are now in their home town, and they were overcome with all the problems they were facing. Our friendship was fairly utilitarian, not so much one of having much more than faith in common. But we loved them and prayed for them, and today my emotions have varied between being calm and accepting to sadness to aching for them, and back again.
It didn't take considering their friendship to be close to feel affected by his death. I respected him; he was a man who lived out his faith through every difficult turn. It reminded me of a poem that my sister had posted on our bedroom wall when I was a kid, and I kind of memorized it. I think it has affected my outlook toward others somewhat, and it ties in well with Christian faith and the meaning of relationship to others; it explains how even not being such a close friend of Andrew, his death still affects me:

No Man is an Island, by John Donne (1572-1631)
No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Boys, Friendship and the Crucial Birthday Party Invite

Today I came to realize how delaying a boy's birthday party without explanation can wreak havoc among the hearts and minds of the boys involved...which makes me touched at their sensitivity, and frustrated at my lack of attention to the matter of arranging a timely party.
I first received a message from a mother asking whether her son had done something to bug Tim...to which I had to reply no he had not...but we did clarify some things that had both boys in a state of confusion as to what was keeping them apart, so God provided a healing in that.
Next, and it should have been before, since Tim received it a few hours earlier, Tim brought me a handwritten note from another friend who was devastated to think that Tim didn't like him any more...which couldn't be farther from the truth. It was given to Tim this afternoon, but because it was faintly written, Tim with his eye-focusing troubles could not read it. The note was requesting an immediate response. Tim gave it to me very late tonight, so I couldn't even call the boy's mother and clarify; I sent an e-mail but will call as soon as I'm up at daybreak. Tim was very distraught when he found the hurt that this friend was going through, and so was I.
I noticed a thread going through these incidents. With the first boy, who had various times declined invitations to our house, I in self-consciousness thought it might be because of my housekeeping being far from perfect, and/or because the other boys had been obsessed with a movie series that he had not seen yet, and he might have felt at a disadvantage with them...when actually he declined because he thought he ought to stay with another friend after music class because the friend's mother required him to stay and study. So I had thought his hesitation might be my fault. He thought Tim's delay in inviting him to the birthday was because of something he had done to bug Tim. The other boy thought Tim didn't like him because of something selfish he had seen in his own behavior, but which Tim had not taken on as an issue.
So we were all blaming it on ourselves, the two friends and me...all figuring that divisions that we had imagined were our own faults. The divisions were imagined, and the faults were imagined (well, housekeeping can be a real issue around here), but I think the trait of blaming self and not blaming the other is thanks to Christ...He has put it in our hearts not to place blame on another, not to dismiss a case as being another's fault. He has caused us to look to our own lack, our own faults in need of correction. I am so thankful for this, because it allowed for resolution. If the first friend had just thought Tim was being unfriendly, it could have been the end of the friendship. If the second friend had assumed the same, that friendship could have come to an end. If I had thought that the boy who avoided our house was "judgmental" about housecleaning, or just plain unfriendly, I might not have even wanted discussion with his mother. So Jesus has created in us a healing ability where hardness might have never allowed the friendships to flourish and continue.
I am still feeling convicted that I should have been sensitive enough to notify friends that their sons are definitely welcome to come celebrate Tim's birthday when I get my act together, though I never realized the potential effects...but I am so thankful for God's leading in keeping the doors of friendship open and allowing honesty and healing and correct thinking. And I am so honored and awed to have my son have such sweet friendships. Hallelujah!

We Represent Christ to our Neighbor; Our Neighbor Represents Christ to Us!

Who is my neighbor? I've been pondering this thought lately, and a few scenarios come to mind. Jesus seems to sum up the matter of our neighbors upon the earth in a manner so succinct and so all-encompassing all at once, by relating the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. Don't we all have trouble with a neighbor next door? All the more a person who dresses funny, smells funny, has a different standard of rules...Jesus helps us to see that our neighbor is the person of any ethnicity...of any political or economic or theological background...from any neighborhood, near or far...and as I thought about it (even while reading an unrelated book, various verses interrupted my thoughts, so I kept notes), the exhortation to love your neighbor is found not just in that passage but throughout the Scriptures. The passage that I think most clearly displays what Jesus is proposing is in Matthew 25:31-46:
"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'
"Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' "The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'
"Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.' "Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?' "Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'"
If that passage doesn't cause me to stop and consider the things that I have done in my life, or to resolve to do the best I can in times to come, I don't know what would! I need to post it somewhere more visible, so that it becomes a more primary attitude as I go about my days. Others clearly represent Jesus Christ Himself, and how we treat them not only indicates to them how much His people love them, but indicates to Jesus how much we love Him. It's not an isolated thought; it's clear throughout the Scriptures:
Proverbs 19:17 says that if we lend to the poor, we lend to the Lord. It isn't that Jesus needs us to lend to Him; of course that's a ridiculous notion. So the only alternative is that lending to the poor is a gracious attitude, and blesses God Himself. He receives blessing from us when we provide for another. What an amazing thought!
The flow doesn't just go outward from ourselves, either. Jesus feels how others treat us as well. When Saul was walking along the Damascus road, and Jesus stopped him and blinded him (Acts 9:3-5) and asked him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" And He said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting..." Saul had never seen Christ. He had never personally persecuted Him. But Jesus was feeling the pain personally of those who Saul had been mistreating and killing.
Jesus will also bless those who treat us well. I always have to remind myself that this is about a cup being offered to Christians, not by Christians to others: Mark 9:41 says, "For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward." This is sandwiched in the context of how we treat a little child: Mark 9:36-37 says, "Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, 'Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.'" and then, in verse 42, He says,"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea." I have only touched on the verses that regard loving your neighbor; they are many: "Honor all people"; "Love your wife as Christ loves the church"; "Fathers, do not exasperate your children"; "Turn the other cheek..." And then when I read 1 John, I think that the writer must have been very grieved because of the prevalence of hateful attitudes in the recipients of his letter; the exhortations regarding loving one's brother are plentiful there: 1 John 2:9-11 says, "The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes." Then there is 1 John 3:10-18: "By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother's were righteous.
Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth."
If that weren't enough, 1 John 4:8 says, "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." Then there is 4:20: "If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen."
The consequences of how we treat others are breathtaking: To be given a "Well-done, good and faithful servant" at the end of our earthly days, rather than the dire warnings of Matthew 25:46 or Mark 9:42, we need to be very careful of how we treat others, learn to love the young, the old, the foreign, the enemy, the unlovable and the helpless, and remove any attitude that hinders our doing so. It isn't something that comes readily to us, or God would not have to keep teaching us and reminding us in His word. It is a process and something at which we can constantly be practicing to do better.
Psalm 18:29 For by You I can run upon a troop; and by my God I can leap over a wall.

Fitness is a Culture all its Own...Not Mine! Oh, but Now it is!

We recently made a move not everyone would say was wise--I'm personally not sure it was wise, at least speaking from a financial standpoint. We joined the YMCA...a move we've never made before because it seemed so expensive. Still, with January being a half-price initiation fee month, it was tempting in view of a few significant factors. We don't have medical insurance, and though physical activity can increase the need for medical care, it also can lower the need for medical care (especially at 48 and 58 years old)...or the risk, for that matter, of death.
We joined partially because Tim sees various friends involved in hockey, and wrestling, and baseball...(he tried baseball and gave it up when he got hit in the face by one). He has lately been asking to get involved in some form of sports. I am not good at keeping kids enrolled in things. I don't know how people do it, it's a foreign culture to me. So he was feeling left out, and you can tell by looking at him that a little exercise wouldn't do him any harm. We try, by biking, and walking, and tv show exercise programs, and just lately Tim bought a nifty skateboard and has gotten pretty good at it. But he needs more structure, and so...Tim was one factor.
Then there's Gary. He has no interests outside of work. A person could think that surely he has one or two, but this is a description of a typical night for Gary after work: He changes into more comfortable clothes. He sits in his recliner. He reads the newspaper. He does paperwork. He eats dinner (preferably in the recliner). And then he dozes off. I have to wake him up to go to bed. So Gary was another factor. I'm hoping he will find it interesting and helpful and healthy.
Then there's me. I have never been very fit. I remember even as a little kid (well, when you consider for 7 years I was the youngest, I was at a disadvantage...) whenever there were sports that involved even short bursts of running, I got completely winded very quickly. I'm talking, Red Rover, let alone our short sprint race across the Continental Divide. Who knows if there was anything physically malformed within me...it wouldn't surprise me, but I think I would have died by now if there was! By God's grace I'm still alive, and I intend to be at least until Tim grows up, and hopefully longer. So when I went to the orientation tonight, the woman was amazed that in all my many years I had never been enrolled in a fitness organization. So I am the third factor in this decision.
Another factor, a very important one to me, is that while I'm home with Tim, and Gary's out for the day, and Katie's off to college, the only people I am in contact with are Christians. I might occasionally talk to a neighbor, but 98% of my time is indoors, in my house. I shop as little as possible, because I don't need to spend the money. I don't work outside the home, I don't belong to any clubs. Our only social environment is church, which in itself is completely adequate for my own perceived needs. But how in the world can I be getting to know the unbelievers around me? How can I share the delight of knowing Christ with someone who has no hope, no peace, no confidence? I have to wedge myself out of the house and into the world a bit more than I normally would. This is a fourth factor.
One more factor is the hope of having Tim meet more kids, homeschooled or otherwise, in the area, and make friends with them. This would be for his benefit and for the hope of sharing Christ. He shares the desire to make Him known to others; I've seen it in him from the time he was small. So this is factor number five. I look forward to seeing how these all pan out, which factors are most successfully addressed over the next few months.
There is something very uncool, uncultured, about a person like me in a fitness place. The first day I tried one of their fitness machines, I noticed a woman nearby (who I know from a previous church)...she had her water bottle, a sweat rag, a book...I fumbled with the machine, trying to turn it on. I finally figured out you have to get it moving for the lights to come on. I started going on the machine and it didn't take long for my heart rate to climb into the warning light area...I wasn't going fast enough to slow down, either. I guess it's a good thing I am doing this! Does a heart rate of 135 mean you're dead? If so, no one seems to have noticed. I guess I got away with it for now.
I also tend to walk to the end of the wrong hallway over and over again, looking for the right room I'm looking for. And I don't have the right kind of clothes. I go in my jeans, because I don't have sweat pants (I don't want any), and I don't have any fitness clothes. My logic is this: Pretty soon my pants will be too large for me, and so would any fitness clothes I bought now; why not wear my jeans out by exercising in them, so that I get the wear before I have to throw them out? So I look uncultured and I don't have my water bottle and I go to the ends of hallways and turn around.
Today I at least had my tennis shoes and not my clogs, as I had the other day. That was an improvement. I got on a machine and moved it while I pushed the buttons. I'm getting a little cooler! There was a little tv set on the machine, and the Simpsons were on. I turned the channel to the news but there was no sound. I noticed others nearby had brought headphones. I think I'm going to have to bring a gym bag to carry all the things that would make me cool. I don't think I have a gym bag, and when I looked around, no one had one with them. I don't know how they carry all their cool equipment: water bottle, book, headphones, membership card...without dropping something every few feet.
I couldn't get the heart monitor to work; I think it was broken. Maybe it was a good thing, or I might have been further troubled by a warning light. There were red dots along the bottom of a screen. I finally figured out by a little burst of going faster that the faster you go, the more dots fill up the space. One of my columns of dots, where I burst faster, had two; the rest had one. The screen could have contained dots about 20 high, I think. I was going pretty slow. I could feel the sweat starting up (I hate sweat), and my cheeks were getting red like they get when I do things like that. The girl next to me was having no trouble going a lot faster than I did. She had her water bottle, her headphones, her fitness clothes. You could tell it wasn't her first day here. I wondered about my fourth factor, the hope of sharing Christ. No one seems to notice that the room is full of about 50 people. They look straight ahead, like in an elevator. No one is talking to anyone else. No one looks to the side, or turns around to look behind them (like I did). At least I didn't have to be embarrassed being such a beginner. No one noticed anything I was doing. I know that if I even talk to someone, I will definitely be different. I will be counter-cultural just in saying hello.
The machine told me on its little electronic message screen that I was 20% done. This was the first time I had the upper hand. I knew in my hyper-beating heart that I was about 95% done. I'd worked for about 15 minutes, and my goal was to work off 100 calories. (That's another thing where I think I had the upper hand. I think I worked off about 500, because it didn't know how fast my heart was going.) I almost stopped at 50...then I thought, "I think I can make it to 75"...then when I hit that, I started the countdown to 100. So now, I am feeling so fit and so cool. I've worked out at the gym tonight. Yeah, I'm finally in the groove! Groovy.

Is God Capricious, or Just Unpredictable?

Yesterday at church our pastor's son Jay (who is studying to be a pastor as well) gave the little introductory talk at the beginning of the service, I don't know what you call it, the invocation? He generally talks about the Psalms, about which he is writing his paper, so he knows whereof he speaks. I listened pretty closely (other than when Tim did his various things to distract), but in discussion time afterward I found that another woman had caught something that I missed.
She asked, "You said that God is unpredictable; what did you mean by that?" I think the reason I didn't catch it was because I so agreed with it. Who knows what He will do next? I never thought of thinking that He was predictable; at least I don't think I did. From the discussion that followed, it came out that she thought that Jay might be saying that God is capricious, which isn't what he meant at all. I thought it was a good question for an interesting discussion and meditation afterward.
I can arrange plans for my days, but God rearranges every one of them from the very start. Proverbs 16:9 says, "The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps." I am living testimony to that verse! At the beginning of a homeschool year, I tend to plan out what assignments and activities we might do every week, but I have yet to have a week that turns out anything like I planned. I don't expect that will ever happen, and yet I make my plans because I still need to! I think I would have a heart attack if things turned out the way I expected them to. But the surprise element is wonderful. Who knows what is around the next corner? The only time I didn't like that feeling was when I went through about six years of health troubles, and it seemed like those surprises would often incapacitate me for a season. I forgot that those times might come to an end, and by the time that they did, that end was a pleasant surprise as well. I find it reassuring that the proverb says that the Lord directs man's steps. There is an intended direction, a course that God has in mind for us, even though it overrides our own.
Perhaps we think that God would approve of our plans because we see ourselves acting in obedience, but then He doesn't allow us to carry them out. We don't see things from His viewpoint. The first chapters of the Book of Job give some insight to how God might carry out His purposes in such a confusing way that from our perspective is beyond reason. It all is designed to show His glory. Job didn't understand a series of devastating events that seemed like an extreme, unexpected, unpredictable punishment; but God orchestrated all of it not as a punishment at all, but rather to show off what a faithful man's response would be regardless of his circumstances and his confusion--which ultimately, even today, continues to give Him glory. It's never just the central person and circumstance itself, but like a ripple from a pebble thrown into a pond, every event impacts the people who surround it and the consequences of our response to what God gives us may go farther and last longer than we would ever dream, sometimes (if not always) into eternity.
Psalm 139, usually quoted in reference to how God creates each human being, can also be viewed in terms of all our life. 139:5 says, "You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me." Our lives are hemmed in by His loving hand such that we will not wander from His plan. Amidst the unpredictable nature of life, that gives me great comfort and confidence. Verse 9 says, "If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me." Jonah always comes to my mind when I read this verse. The stomach of a fish seems like a most unlikely and remote part of the sea, the most improbable place to have God involved in a person's life, but Jonah found Him, and His loving intervention, even there.
God does not direct our day on the spur of the moment. He had them planned from long ago; Psalm 139:16 says, "Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them." I am more capricious in setting plans out for the whole school year by September than God is in setting out one moment of my life, because I don't foresee how any of it will actually play out, how we will interact with others, what greater opportunities will supersede my plans and what misfortunes will grind them to a halt. But God knows! He knows every moment ahead of time, down to every detail. He has set out His work for us long before we ever started each day (Eph. 2:10). And His plans are never frustrated, as mine are!
I can pray for a certain outcome in my life, but any specifics I present it in prayer never seem to happen, even if the outcome is only a small variation on what I offered up. (I'm not saying God doesn't answer my prayers--He answers even the most feeble ones, much to my amazement! He just doesn't do so as I picture in advance, but in His more excellent way.) Perhaps God changes the outcome in part to remind me that I'm not in charge, and because I don't have enough wisdom to determine the best outcome. But God is not capricious. That is, He doesn't act in such a way that there were two possibilities, and He chose one over the other for no reason at all. I believe that every act that He does perfectly presents Who He is...represents every aspect of His character perfectly, even if we don't see it that way; any other outcome would be flawed. Whatever answer to prayer, whatever unexpected turn of events in our day, it's a perfect reflection of the character of God that He sovereignly directed that outcome. If it surprises us and we didn't think that God would act in that way, it only shows us how insufficiently we understand His character.
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.