Tapestry of Grace

Though we like to think we’re the ones running our lives, the truth is that God is the one orchestrating each life.  Sometimes I look around and wonder if God really sees what’s going on only to remind myself that he does, I just don’t see his hand as clearly as I ought.  Jesus was a man of sorrows who knew more about pain and suffering than many of us can begin to imagine. And he did it all for us.  How extraordinary! How revolutionary!

I suppose because we’re sometimes given to thinking we’re the ones controlling our lives, we don’t understand when things go wrong, as they often will.  I know that for many years my first question was, God where are you?  I want a husband and kids too – what’s wrong with me?  Why won’t you give me that?  Seems I was in “gimme” mode a great deal of the time.  Funny I should ask that considering I thought I was the one in control.  The answer is that God never left, I did. 

Why do bad things happen to good people?  Why do some people get cancer and others don’t?  Why do some survive cancer and others don’t?  Why did a mother have to die before she had time to really live?  Why did those parents lose that beautiful child?  Why, why, why? I don’t know.  I do know that God walks through the fire with us and that it is in our suffering when we are closest to the Lord of the Cross. 

Walking through cancer I remind myself daily that God is in the details, even if I can’t feel him standing there with me.  The truth I learned is that tragedy is never the last act – not for those of us who believe in an unfailing, loving Father God.  We may go down, but he’ll always be there to pick us back up.  We may close our eyes in death, but one day we’ll rise with Christ and live with him forever.  Death does not win.  There is a God, and he is the God of the Impossible, so there is always hope.

God weaves a tapestry of grace around our lives in accordance with the plan he has for us.  By grace we come to know him.  By grace we walk to serve him.  By grace we share him with others. By grace we face the daily grind.  By grace we face tragedy and sorrow.  By grace we walk through the wilderness.  By grace we pick up the Sword of Truth and go into battle.  By faith we cling to the promise of his Kingdom.  From the day we are born to the day we travel Home, his grace surrounds us, grounds us, delivers us, and comforts us.

I say this having discovered that yet another co-worker is staring down the barrel of a gun called cancer.  He began with it in his brain and in his lungs; now it has gone to his spine.  The doctors tell him he hasn’t long. That kind of news is devastating.  All you have to hear is the word “cancer” and time stands still – nothing moves, you barely breathe, every sound seems to come from a long way off.  It’s bad enough to deal with the word, let alone what comes after.  Then to be told you haven’t long?  Usually when the doctors tell you that, they also tell you there’s nothing else they can do.

I know God is the God of the Impossible, yet I also know that sometimes the answer is no. It isn’t easy to accept that no might be the only answer you get.  Yet, by the grace of an ever present God, we do.  And we carry on until God calls us Home.  As the song says – the ship may be battered and the sails may be torn but the Anchor holds, in spite of the storm. I must trust that whatever happens it is imbued with God’s tapestry of grace over his life. 

At the same time I look at what I have been given and I wonder, why me?  What could God possibly see in someone like me?  I’m not pretty.  I’m not popular.  I’m not a great singer or a great writer or a great thinker. My hobbies are crocheting, quilting, and reading. I don’t date and I don’t party. My life is so routine I’m downright boring.  I go to work, I go home, I go to church – that’s the circle of my life.  How could God possibly use someone as plain and ordinary as me?  Why have I been left and others taken?  I don’t know.  I have to trust that God does.  I have to believe that whatever happens God has my life in his hands, as well as the lives of others, and that his plan will work things out for the better. 

One thing I have learned is that while God may have grand plans for my life, I sometimes make him work harder than needs to get me to where I should be.  I can be incredibly stubborn.  I can be even more incredibly stupid.  I can almost see God rolling his eyes, shaking his head, and wondering when I’m ever going to get it.  So far I haven’t seen a burning bush, been blinded on the road to Damascus, or wandered in the desert 40 years, but I’ve laid waste to the time I could have spent walking more closely with him.  How could God forgive me for that?  I don’t know but he does. 

Truth is, I’m not so good at pulling in all the strands of my life and weaving them into something credible and purposeful.  I drop stitches here and there, don’t buy enough of the same color yarn, use the wrong stitch, weave it too tightly or too loosely, and generally make a mess of things.  But unlike me God knows where each strand of my life is and what it needs to do.  He knows how to use it, what color it is, and how to weave them all together in a pattern that surprises me.  He takes the broken strands of my impossible life and weaves them into a tapestry of grace. 

Faith By Faith

Today was the ominous find out about the biopsy day after having a colonoscopy done last week.  The surgeon was worried about some scarring but as it turns out it’s only scarring with a little ulcer thrown in.  No cancer, not even a hint of it.  Nothing to start writing my will over.  Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord!  He is good!  Time to enjoy the summer and my place in God’s world.

God’s healing requires faith because you can’t see it coming and you sometimes don’t feel it has arrived.  You just have to know and believe it to be true.  And you have to accept the form it comes in, because it doesn’t always come the way you want it to.  I am amazed every day that I stand above ground, able to work in God’s Kingdom, yet others are taken home as their measure of healing.  He is still the awesome God of the wilderness, the loving Savior who drew children to him like rainwater.

For the longest time I though I had to have the miracle now; after all, he is the God of the impossible.  I wanted signs and wonders.  What I got was a slow path through the wilderness of chemo and radiation treatments, surgery, and more doctor visits in one year than I’ve had in my entire life before then.  Sometimes in order to get our faith to ignite we have to do the slow burn.  Often our leap in faith comes with small steps from one situation to another. Spirituality takes time to grow.

We look to Jesus to perform miracles, wonders, and signs when we should be asking him to forgive us and show us how to walk in faith for his Kingdom.  I used to think that my needs were too small for God to worry about, my situation too insignificant for him to care about.  Now I know the truth – he cares about every aspect of my life – he just sometimes doesn’t answer my prayers and supplications the way I expect him to.  It isn’t that God isn’t listening, it’s just that sometimes the answer is no.

Living a spirit-filled life challenges us to do the impossible for God, even when we know we’re the weakest link in the chain.  It gives us the impetus to go forward and walk the path set before us, even when we don’t necessarily feel or see God on the path.  He’s still there.  He hasn’t left.  He’s giving us room to meet him and walk with him, to learn more about his ways, and to do more for him than we ever thought possible. Even when the gauntlet includes cancer, going through the fire is worth it, because in the fire we are purified.  At no time in my life have I been closer to the Savior than during the storm the word “cancer” causes.

Of course, there are times when I will fail, fall down, get broken, sidelined, off track.  But God is always there to rescue me and bring me back to the path.  Hopefully, I’m a little wiser for the wear and tear.  Hopefully, I’ve learned the lesson God had to teach me.  Hopefully, I won’t let a failure become the litany of my life.  Because there is a God, there is always hope.

I’ve met a lot of folks who want positive proof that God exists.  My question is, how much proof do you need?  Does God have to perform miracles every day for you to see him?  Not me.  I walked out on my deck the other day and discovered an absolutely beautiful, deep purple clematis growing around the railings.  How it got there is God’s work.  I didn’t plant it. Neither did my mother or anyone else in our family.  I suppose you could claim the critters thought it was a nut and planted the bulb for me.  But I believe God placed it there just for me.  It’s not a miracle, just a pretty flower blooming on my front deck.  It means the world to me because God is in the growing of it.

After finding the clematis I got to thinking about a couple of other strange occurrences.  Last year, just as I was finding out about the tumor, my mother and I happened to see something odd in the side yard.  When we got out there, we discovered an entire carpet of purple crocuses decorating the side yard.  You couldn’t see the grass or leaves for the purple.  I had some flower beds near there, but I hadn’t planted crocuses in them. The ones I did plant were in back of the house and were white and yellow. So how did all those purple crocuses get there?  It would have taken an army of squirrels to plant that many bulbs thinking they were nuts for winter storage.  Who else but God could create a carpet as beautiful as that?  Like I said, how much proof do you need?

Then this spring, just as I was setting up appointments to monitor the tumor area with CT scans and a colonoscopy, I happened to notice the lilac bush by the side of the house.  I’d planted it years ago and it had never ever bloomed.  This year it did, in a glorious shade of purple.  And then there’s the iris out by the shed that has always come up but never bloomed.  It bloomed this year – in a deep shade of purple.  I think God is trying to tell me something.  I think I’d better pay attention.

Saying Good-Bye

People come in and out of your life for a reason I’m told.  With some folks it’s easy to tell why they came your way, and with others it’s kind of muddled.  Some folks come to challenge you and some folks come to comfort you.  I’m not always sure what lesson I’m supposed to be learning but I’m always sure there is one.

There are people through the years who have passed by my life and I don’t even remember their names, as with most of my high school graduating class.  I look at classmates.com and barely even recognize the names, let alone the people themselves.  High school was not a particularly fun time for me, neither was college, or even the beginning of my work career for that matter. Recently, some of the folks who were co-workers at the company (now defunct) I worked for before moving to North Carolina decided to have a reunion.  While it might be interesting to see those faces, I’m not sure I want to re-live that part of my life.

Truth be told, there are some folks I was glad to leave behind.  They were negative, unhappy people who walked around with clouds of doom over their heads.  They were determined to be gloomy and turned away all resemblance of efforts to move them into the sunshine.  That’s one crowd I’d rather not be a part of.  I do wonder at times if anything has changed for them, though I suspect not.  Some I talk to on Facebook and still put out the same aura of negativity, doom, and gloom.  Such sad lives that could have been such happy, productive lives – there, but for the grace of God, I could have been.

Then there are other folks who leave you and you wish you could call them back and start all over again.  Miss Mayzell was one of those people.  She would look me in the eyes and tell me she loved me and I knew she actually meant it.  She would see people she knew coming her way and her eyes would light up, just as if Jesus were coming to see her.  She was an amazing woman who knew how to love people well.  She went to be with the Lord on May 17, 2011.  Until we see her again on the other side of that golden veil, only heaven will know the light in her eyes. 

I didn’t have the privilege of knowing Miss Mayzell long, and though I feel the loss, I’m sure her family feels the pain of it in a much deeper way.  They had her for 75 years and it wasn’t nearly long enough.  Almost all of them said her being gone was a surreal kind of thing; they kept expecting her to walk back into the room laughing and carrying on. I hope they take comfort in knowing she is completely healed and sitting at the feet of Jesus watching over them.

Sometimes I have said goodbye knowing that ahead of me was a new adventure.  I left a position at a local college to come to the company I am now with in 2002.  At first I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea.  At that point in my life, I didn’t do change well. My mother was the one who saw the ad in the paper for positions, not me.  My interview was with my ex’s nephew’s wife, so I was sure I was doomed to failure.  I had to start at the bottom for less pay and get used to life in a cubicle.  Over the years I’ve been here I’ve come to understand that God orchestrated this move.  Had God not been directing my path in this move, I wouldn’t be where I am today, literally, and that’s the plain, simple truth.

Some people I am truly sorry to have lost touch with.  I can think of one person in particular who I thought was a true friend, until the day she told me that she no longer required my friendship.  In the beginning days of our friendship, I worked nights and she worked days, so scheduling was a problem, but once I moved to day shift, I thought we’d be able to spend some quality time together.  Turns out I shouldn’t have told her to read the Bible and get into a Spirit-filled church for a life-changing event instead of reading The Shack and watching God-TV.  The truth really will set you free.  Perhaps one day she will forgive me.

I’ve had to say good-bye to family members both young and old.  My granny was 102 when she died, my dad 86, my niece only 27. I look at pictures in our albums and it seems strange to know they’re gone.  In the pictures they look so vibrant and happy. Even though I’m past the major battle with cancer (down to monitoring for any changes), my mother is worried that I’ll expire before she does.  I keep telling her that if I end up pushing up daisies she’d better make sure they are purple ones but she’s not buying it. 

I guess I’m a little odd because I don’t really worry about having to say good-bye to life on this earth all that much. Mostly I wonder what the people I leave behind will do with all the stuff crammed in my bedroom (including rows of books, CDs, and DVDs).  I wonder what they will do with all the stuff in my office at work. What I think most about is the kind of legacy I will leave behind and ask God daily to make it one worth the leaving.  If I could leave a tenth of the legacy behind that Miss Mayzell did, I would be content.

Realistically, I know that no matter what happens, I’ll meet Jesus on the other side.  Death really has no hold over me.  It’s odd to think of myself as not being here but I know death is not something I can escape.  I know I need to be ready and I know I need to keep walking until Jesus calls me home. At least I’m not silly enough to predict exactly what day and hour Jesus will come for me, as if I could command God to do it my way.  I am smart enough to be thankful for every day he gives me beyond the one I’m living today.

Party of One

I’ve never been popular or one of the “in” crowd.  In high school I knew that was because I wasn’t considered pretty by any stretch of the imagination, I wasn’t at all sports-minded, and I wasn’t a member of the right families. 

Now, I never really longed to be a part of the giggly, vacuous sorority crowd but I always hoped I’d fit in some day with at least part of humanity.  At first I thought I’d marry that knight in shining armor on a white stallion, but that didn’t pan out so no acceptance there.  And since I didn’t have any children, I didn’t gain any acceptance that way either.  It’s hard to say how many times I’ve tried to be part of a group, like a church choir, only to be rejected because we had very little, if anything, in common other than coming to church every Sunday. 

And then there’s the hideous idea that just because I try to support the preacher and his wife I must be after him.  Listen, girls, they are your husbands for a reason, and beyond talking to them about church matters, sermons, or Biblical ideas, you can keep them.  I neither want nor need “your man.” As if they’d have me anyway.  Really, it’s not as if I’m some sort of man magnet scooping up every man in my path.  Basically, I think men find me scary, so they’re not likely to run after me in the first place.

I’ve had my share of “friends,” mostly, I discovered, because there was something I could do for them – house sitting while they went on a wild vacation, fixing their computer equipment, teaching them how to use their iPod, or crocheting something for them to give to one of their real friends.  I seem to be more household help than anything else because they seem to feel they need to pay me.  When they had a need I could fill, I was their friend – beyond that, when I stopped being useful or was unable to provide services, I was disowned.

Over the years I’ve learned to accept my lot in life as a party of one.  I’ve tried going to church functions, like Christmas dinners for Sunday School classes, but I always end up sitting by myself at an otherwise empty table.  I’ve tried to engage choir members in conversation, but since I didn’t have a wallet full of baby pictures to whip out, I didn’t get very far. Even at work I’m separated.  My office is off by itself and away from the mainstream of my team. We don’t have much in common either, other than working together.  I’m a foreigner, in more ways than one.

It was brought home to me that nothing much has really changed when I attended a recent funeral.  A few people spoke to me – everyone else just sort of gave me that “who in the world is she” stare.  I didn’t go for them.  I went for the family of the person went to be with the Lord.  But as I stood in the parking lot waiting for the family to leave for the cemetery it struck me how separate I am.  I think I know better than most how lonely Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Truly, some of this is my fault.  I hesitate to become involved because I fear rejection.  After all, I’ve seen it over and over and over again.  Then there’s the fear of having my intentions misunderstood. I don’t want to get in anyone’s way, or cause any kind of strife in the lives of others.  To that end I avoid parties, dinners, and the like so no one will have to worry what I’m up to.  I remember one time being seen by a church member talking to a lady about purple scarves and being perceived as trying to start trouble in the church.  I never did figure out how that perception was arrived at but I left the church nevertheless after a few Sundays of whisperings.

I’ve learned to have a thick skin when it comes to gatherings.  I know I’ll be sitting alone.  I know that I’ll have to be careful how I shake hands with men during church service.  I know groups of women will never truly accept me because I’m single and childless.  I’ve learned that being more of a ghost who comes in and goes out pretty much without anyone noticing is okay – God knows I was there. 

In some ways I wonder what’s wrong with me.  I know I don’t fit into your social patterns, but am I really such a bad person that you don’t want me for your friend?  Have I not done enough to be your friend?  Maybe it’s all based on how much I do for you and not on whether you want to come together as fellow Christians to support each other.  Maybe I’m silly to think that it would be great to discuss Bible studies, sermon understandings, and ideas on how to walk in a world that basically despises and discounts Christians.

Maybe the problem is I’m not always a good caretaker either.  I forget to send cards for special occasions and to cheer people up in case they might be blue. I’m horrible at calling just to check in, mostly because I work in a support call center.  I’m not all that excited to spend hours on the phone.  Because I’m not a depressed person myself, I have a hard time listening to those who climb into bed for months at a time because they’re too depressed to face the world. I’ve had days where I should have sunk into the pits of gloom and doom, but with Jesus there I just can’t seem to manage it, at least not for long.

I’m not very good at setting up adventures and planning fun trips. I don’t like sports all that much and eating out is about a once-a-month kind of thing for my budget.  I think reading a good novel is a fun trip but I’m sure that’s not what others would expect.  No one in their right mind would want someone who does burnt offerings to host a progressive dinner. During tax season, when I’m working ten to fourteen-hour days six days a week, I feel fortunate to remember my own name at the end of the day, so I’m sure I miss friend opportunities too.

At any rate, standing there in that parking lot, alone in spite of the number of people around me, I thought again about how Jesus was despised and rejected by men and women in his own culture yet he still went to the Cross for them, gave his life’s blood for their salvation.  It isn’t about me or whether I’m accepted on this earth or not.  It’s all about the blood of Christ and what he gave to make me one of his own. 

In the end I’m never walking alone here on earth, it only appears so from time to time.  Christ is always there with me, even if he at times seems to be a silent partner whom I can neither see, nor feel, nor hear.  Silence doesn’t mean he’s not there.  Silence sometimes just means he’s bearing my sorrows and lifting me up by the blood he gave for me.  In God’s economy alone is what you often have to be in order to walk more closely with him.