Saturday, June 22, 2013

It's In Jon's Room!




In the late 1990s a children’s fantasy movie, The Borrowers, was released.   


The story, set in a home in England, features a family of tiny people who secretly live behind the walls and under the floor and ‘borrow’ items from the humans also living there. 

 I’m convinced they are real and live in our house. 

A few days ago, I reached for the broom I keep in the linen closet of the master bath, so I could sweep the floor after I dried my hair.

Gone.

I needed my kitchen scissors to open a bag of almonds.

Missing.

I looked in the drawer for the cheese slicer to serve some cheese and crackers with lunch.

Not there.

Useful items grow legs and disappear around here regularly.

A friend had been missing her reading glasses for several months. 

While she was visiting one day, Jon came out of his room with a pair of glasses on his head. 

She points to Jon and says to me, “Hey, those look familiar, are they yours?”

“No,” I reply, “they’re not mine. I don’t know where they came from.”

Surprise, surprise! They were hers.

I find random items in Jon’s room all the time:  the wooden dowel handle that screws into the toilet bowl plunger, bills that need to be paid,  blank checks from our checkbook, a makeup brush that goes with my blush, the manual for the car from the glove box, Mike’s neckties from our closet and various kitchen utensils, to name just a few.

Recently I invited some mom’s and their kids over for a swim day in our pool. There were keys, sunglasses, phones and open tote bags full of things scattered around everywhere. 

Jon decided to help himself to two pair of kids flip flops that weren’t any bigger than his hand. It’s not like they would fit him and he’s always hated that thingy that goes between the toes. 

Who knows what goes on in that noggin of his? 

During David’s high school graduation, each graduate was encouraged to write a one-line acknowledgement to their parent(s), family or friends which was placed in a PowerPoint presentation and projected on several large screens during part of the ceremony. 

Sweet sentiments scrolled across the screen accompanied by the student’s name who penned them:

“Thanks Mom and Dad for all your support,” 

“I love you Grandma, you’re the best,” 

“Couldn’t have made it through without you, Friend.” 

“God bless you Teacher, for all you did for me.”

The crowd ooo-ed and awww-ed as we watched the quotes marquee across the screen and waited for the one meant for us. 

 Finally David’s popped onto the screen.

“It’s in Jon’s room!” was all it read, in a big, bold font.

As the crowd mumbled in bewilderment all around us, we burst into fits of laughter. 

For all the years David couldn’t find the essay he just wrote, homework and test papers, notebooks, pencils, pens, assignment books and algebra calculators, the answer to the question...

“OK, where is my________?” 

...was always, "Go look in Jon’s room.”
 
The answer to that question has never changed.

If you come for a visit and are missing a few things when you return home, we know the first place to look.

By the way, I found the stick to my broom...guess where…? 

Jon’s room.

And the broom itself… behind the recliner in our bedroom.

Like I said...who knows?

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Before It's Gone Too Far


For the first time since it was built in the late 1990’s, our house can be seen from the street. Our home, which backs up to a lake and was, until recently, surrounded by trees and Florida’s wild palmetto and scrub brush in front and on both sides, has had a seclusion invasion. 


A new house is being built on the lot next door. All the trees and brush on the north side of our home have been leveled and we are adjusting to the fact that very soon, a view of looming walls will be replacing nature on our northern horizon.

Our quiet acre of paradise has been invaded by backhoes, construction trucks and crews of workers wielding high decibel power tools and playing loud music, while attempting to converse over top of all the racket they are making. 

Two weeks ago we went outside after a rain and noticed water runoff, beginning near the side of the newly constructed foundation and flowing down, through the mulched area that stretches along the edge of our driveway between the two properties. A tiny rivulet of scooped out earth had formed and washed some of the bark mulch into our driveway gravel.

We pointed this out to the general contractor who promised to take care of it right away. 

He didn’t. 

A few days later after another hard rain, the first stream was larger and several more had formed. Now mulch and sand was washing down the driveway all over the cemented section in front of the garage. While I cleaned it up, the boss man looked it over and said he’d take care of it right away. 

He didn’t.

Several evenings ago we had one of the hardest rains I’ve seen in a while; one of those monsoon varieties with continuous thunder, lightning and a wide open fire hydrant sky, pouring torrential waters down from the heavens for well over an hour. It was one of Florida’s crazy, hazy summer afternoon rain storms.

When we went outside the next morning, an entire section of mulch and gravel and about one inch of sand that makes up the lower part of our driveway and its landscaped edge was washed up nearly to the garage door and under our cars. 

It was a mess. And I was upset!

I won’t bore you with the all the details of what happened next.  I will say that as soon as I went to the shed for a shovel and started digging the trench myself (that had been repeatedly promised) between our property and the construction site, reinforcements were quickly called in to help clean up the mess in our driveway. It took five of us about four hours to shovel, rake, sweep and pressure wash the driveway back to its original state. 

Apparently a fence company has been called and is supposed to come ASAP to put up a silt barrier. It will be buried eight inches under the ground along the edge of our property to stop the run-off and erosion into our driveway. I’m praying they come before it rains again.

I had a light bulb moment for my own heart, when I commented to Mike yesterday, “We all could have been spared four hours worth of sweaty, back breaking work in the hot sun if this had been taken care of back at the onset of the problem.”  

Hebrews 12:1 talks about the besetting sins that hinder us from finishing the course of our life; Song of Solomon 2:15, about the “little foxes that spoil the vine”; Hebrews 12:15, about the root of bitterness that left unchecked, grows until it defiles not only me, but many others; James 1:15 lays out the course of sin from a seemingly petty initial desire to conception and the end result.

It’s impossible to contain a river once it overflows. When I hand the destructive forces of my life over to God at their beginnings, while they’re still small, it allows for the eradication of problems that eventually swell out of control and run loose all over everything and everyone. I need to deal with my stuff before it’s gone too far. 

Inside the human condition, every tiny trickle and tributary left without God’s blueprinted boundary is potentially a mess in the making; a river of self destruction that flows farther and wider than we ever intended. Yes, thank God. He can restore. He can put us back together. He can repair the breach and clean up our mess, but it’s so much better if we just don’t go there at all.

May God help me commit every tiny area of my heart to His work of redemption, so the only thing flowing outward is the living waters of a life lived in Jesus. 

I pray every day what gushes from within me and all over you, is more and more of Him and whole lot less of me.

John 7:38 (ESV) Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

“A little thorn may cause much suffering. A little cloud may hide the sun. Little foxes spoil the vines; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart.”  ~Charles Spurgeon~

“Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”  ~14thCentury Proverb~

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Messing With Us



Until Jesus arrived on the scene, the Israelites had been doing religion the same way for almost 1400 years, since the time of Moses.  After Jesus came, the Jewish Christ followers experienced a continuous state of surprise with just about every tradition, law, regulation, doctrine and theology they had known and lived. Jesus turned the way they believed; all their ceremonial and gotta'-do-it-this-way-every-time thinking, completely upside down. 

In the following passage in the Book of Acts, not only was the Gospel opened up to the Gentiles, but these 'uncircumcised heathens' also received the gift of the Holy Spirit immediately, the moment they believed in Jesus, then following, were baptized in water. 

I'm thinking God did that for Peter's sake so he would be convinced the Good News wasn't just for the him and the Jewish folk, but for all. Reading on to chapter eleven, we see that initially, the other apostles, leaders and believers back in Judea and Jerusalem had issue with the Gentile's joining their Christ 'club'. Throughout their nation’s long history, they were so accustomed to everything of God being about them, that it was difficult for them to let anyone else in.

Acts 10: 44-48 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. 

In many church circles we like to think the order of a person's faith in Christ has to follow a certain path: repent, be water baptized then filled with the Holy Spirit. We see from this account in Acts that's not necessarily so. We Christian types like to 'order' so many of our beliefs and often hang a sign on the door of the building to announce them, so we can be set apart from (or above?) all the rest who don’t see it our way.  

How often do we miss something new and amazing God wants to do because we're stuck in old patterns and a certain point of view? 

When God messes things up, it messes us up. We want to figure Him out, stuff everything He does into a construct so we can formulate it to work the same way every time, maintaining a spirituality that is comfy-cozy and doesn't our rock our proverbial boat too much.

But we can't slot God into an algebraic equation. He is GOD - Big, Powerful, Sovereign, Redemptive, Creative. He can do a thing one way today and come up with a zillion other unimaginable ways for it to happen (or not) the next time. 

I don't know about you, but lately I've been asking God to break down my "It has to be this way" mindset. I want to put aside preconceived ideas, boring, stuck-in-a-rut thinking and open my heart and mind to a God who is able to do and be, far more than I am able to imagine; allowing Him always to surprise me.

I’ve messed myself up plenty. If I'm going to be messed up, I want to be wrecked for Him, 'cause He's the only one who knows how to mess me up properly and put me back together completely!


Sunday, June 16, 2013

All In Dads




According to statistics the average divorce rate in America hovers around fifty percent and forty-three percent of children growing up in America today are being raised without fathers

One sure thing statistics and common sense do show is children need their dads. I understand there are often circumstances beyond control so my goal is not to heap guilt on anyone. Most parents can create plenty of that on their own.

But since today is Father's Day I want to salute all the dads who make the mammoth effort to be in their kids lives, love them, raise them, teach them, and support them (divorced or not). You are more significant than you will ever know.

The ones who stay for the long haul are those who make the difference.  Those who are a constant in the life of a child forge that life into something deeper, stronger, without major gaps and holes.

Some statistics point to higher divorce rates in marriages where a child with a disability exists, although there are conflicting reports over the actual numbers, the added stress it brings to the family can be challenging. But my kid's dad stayed, through it all.

Our youngest son is grown and out of our home now, but my husband is still here, helping me find Jonathan when he wanders, staying home with him so I can go and do, and dealing with the craziness and blessing that having a forever child responsibility in life brings.

Mike has been an anchor the boys and I have counted on over the years to pray, work hard, provide, instruct and love. He dragged kids around in the family van, took them on business trips when it would have been easier to leave them home. He's endured are-we-there-yet car trips and paid for diapers, doctor bills, hamster and guinea pig food, bicycles, broken windows, braces and college when he probably would have preferred a newer car.

He's stuck around for the sleepovers, home schooling, speech therapy, school IEP meetings,  Special Olympics, Legos, music lessons, guitars, drum sets, skateboards, paintball, the learners permit and mom's melt down days.

My Kid's Dad has taught us much about the value of plodding, loyalty, hard work, spending money wisely, being fair, keeping your word, treating people right and living life with integrity, honor and faith in a loving God who created us.

It's has been and still is a wild ride, but he hangs on tight and keeps us moving forward.

So today I want to publicly honor you, Michael Connis. You are my kid's dad and you are amazing.

Thanks for staying.

Thanks for never giving up on our nutty, wonderful family!.

We love you. Happy Father's Day!

Proverbs 20:6 (NIV) Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find?

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Bring It All



I had a dream the other night. Jesus was calling to us, all of humanity

Gently imploring, "Come to me. Bring me whatever you have, whatever you are. I love you exactly as you are so come."

I was in line with a great crowd of people who were moving toward Him. Some were holding a thimble full of their stuff, some were pushing a wheel barrow full and others were driving dump trucks!

It didn't matter to us or Him, what any of us had or the size of it, we were just joyfully relieved to be giving it all to Jesus, the good, bad and indifferent parts of us. He was willingly receiving it all and was pleased.

Then I woke up.

I'm thinking the point of my dream is this:

God isn't messed up or surprised by who you are, where you've come from or what you've done. He just wants you to come to Him. Lay everything down before Him and allow His love to fill you, bless you and change you. 

He's calling my name and yours. He's patiently waiting.

So what are we waiting for?

Quit looking at my stuff and I'll quit looking at yours. 

Let's just go - together.

Matthew 11:28-30  “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (MSG)