The Elbow Paper Cut Club

        

As many of you know I am a Spanish teacher at the local high school in town.  I know what you were thinking. “Really, they hired her? Isn’t she the one that wrote that book about all of those Spanish speaking blunders?”  The answer is, yes. Yes I am.  However, they still hired me and I love what I do, even if I am a bit silly and quirky in the eyes of my students.  I always play upbeat Latin pop music as the kids come into class and you will find me dancing along with it as I greet them.  Can I dance?  Nope, not a lick.  But in my mind I think I can and that’s all that I need to get me going…that and a little Latin beat.

         Dancing for me is a scary thing, especially since my book is entitled Stumbling Along. You’d think I’d be wise enough to shut any type of movement other than walking right down just for the risk of potentially hurting myself.   But I say, live life to it’s fullest.  Dance like nobody’s watching or, in my case, dance like your whole class of 9^th grade students is watching.  And so I continue to do so. 

         Dancing doesn’t seem to be my problem at school just yet, but simply walking down the carpeted hallways does.  Just today as I was walking on the carpet during classes (when no one is supposed to be in the halls), I tripped a bit.  There was not a thing to trip on, not even a lump under the carpet.  It was all me. I knew it. In my mind I owned it. Then I heard a voice say from a bit behind me, “Yep, I saw it.”  It was a student, who was out of class and who probably had no good reason to be.  We had a nice little laugh at my expense and I continued on my journey knowing full well that it wouldn’t be the last time that I did that. 

         As the final bell of the day rang I had my teacher bag all packed up and ready to go for a meeting with some colleagues.  I slung the bag over my shoulder and felt pain in my elbow. I looked and there was a cut followed a few seconds later by blood.  Really?  Really?  I had a large envelope sticking out of my bag and gave myself a paper cut.  On. The. Elbow!! Who does that?  Have you ever gotten a paper cut on your elbow?  I’m going to guess not.  I headed towards the part of the hallway where all of the teachers hang out and showed them my war wound.  Some of them were in unbelief and then remembered whom it was that did it. Others felt bad that I drew blood.  The men were indifferent.  One teacher, my birthday twin, said that because it was a large envelope that it wasn’t just a cut but a laceration and that she had kind of done the same before throwing her bag over her shoulder.  Then another teacher recalled that she too had done it.  Now, they didn’t draw blood from their experiences but when I thought I was alone in the weirdness of getting a paper cut….sorry, laceration, on my elbow these gals had almost experienced the same thing.  Almost.  I felt like I was now a part of this elite club of teacher’s who have slung their bags over their shoulders with too much force and hurt their elbows. 

         With a new spring in my step and blood about to come down my elbow I headed to the office to get a Band-Aid.  I figured I wouldn’t talk with them about tripping in the hallway because there might now be a teacher’s club for that.  And mercy, I didn’t want to look silly in front of my colleagues!

Half Changed

As I drove to school yesterday I was struck by the amount of trees that are already changing color.  Living in northern Michigan I expect this to happen in the fall, but have been a bit shocked at how early they have started their change.  One of my favorite times of the year in this beautiful place where I live is when the trees have fully changed colors and are at their prime peak of beauty.  It’s stunning and amazing and a picture from a camera just can’t capture it.  There’s something to be said about that full change; the transition from the old to the new brilliance of color. It reminds me of the scripture verse from 2 Corinthians 5:17, If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come. 

As I looked at that tree that I pass everyday on my way to school I noticed a few different things about it.  Of course being the speaker and writer that I am, I am always looking for ways to connect the things I see with our relationship with Christ.  Here are a few things that I found that might be an encouragement to you today—to spur you on in your walk with Jesus.

1.    The tree was only halfway changed:  Because I know the way the trees do their transformations every fall, I know the “rest of the story.” The goal of the tree is that all of the leaves will change and in a few weeks it will be a fully, brilliantly colored tree with hardly any green showing.  The old will be gone and the new will come.  But what if that tree just stayed halfway changed?  It looks nice and it’s accomplished part of its goal but hasn’t really transformed fully like it was meant to do.  Have you met Jesus as your Savior but found that you are only halfway transformed, committed or living with a little bit of color but the rest of you, though in need of change, just hasn’t done so?  God’s desire is for us to be totally transformed so that His brilliance and light can shine through you.  Maybe you have stopped part way through that full transformation that God wants to do in your life because it’s too hard, or you think that just going to church on Sundays will keep you with just enough color (change) in your life to keep you going (and just barely for so many people) or maybe it’s as simple as you’ve just kind of slacked off.  So what do you do if you have found that you have only changed part way and you want your life to be fully brilliant for Christ?  Jeremiah 29:13 says, that you will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all of your heart.  What a great place to start.  Seek Him and you WILL find him. 

2.    The tree had a hole in the middle that wasn’t filled with anything.  I’ll be honest; I like to see a tree that’s completely full of colorful leaves in the fall.  When I see a hole in the tree, I think something wrong or better yet I think, quick fill that hole because it shouldn’t be like that.  Oftentimes we are living a life for Christ and yes, we have been changed a bit, but we still have that hole in the middle of our lives.  Some of us leave it there hoping it will fill in but we don’t work at doing so or even ask Christ to fill it for us.  We wander around looking for different things to stuff in the hole to make us feel complete. Some might look for a relationship that they think will make them whole.  I remember from a goofy movie in the 90’s one of the lines that had one person say to the other, “You complete me.”  That’s a great line if we would say that to Jesus instead of a person.  Some of us like to try to fill that hole with alcohol, drugs, pornography, and other things that we know that we shouldn’t dabble in…..but we just can’t stop ourselves.  How can we fill that hole so that we are complete?  We need to let Christ be our everything. Oh believe me, I know that is easier said than done.  I’ve worked on it for years and am still working on it.  But once we truly understand that he is enough, then our hole will start to be filled with the good things of Christ.  A great way to start is by memorizing and living this verse: Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

3.    The picture of my halfway transformed, hole in the middle tree would have been great had the power line not gone through the top of it.  Uggg. It messed up my picture.  That one thick, cable line going across could not be moved.  Isn’t that about right in our lives as well?  The lines of the things that have happened in the past just stick with us and won’t ever go away.  If I had have taken the time and actually knew what I was doing in photo shop I could have gotten rid of that line and you would have never known it was there. That is not my specialty.  However, it is God’s specialty.  When we ask God for forgiveness for those past things that cause the dark lines in our lives, He can take them like the expert photo shop boss and erase them from our picture so all that he sees is the beautiful transformation that we are becoming.  We may still feel the remnants of those lines but on his end they are erased completely.  What a thing to be thankful for.  Is there a possibility that today you need to ask him to erase a line that is causing your full beauty not to shine through?  1 John 1:9 says it well, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Won’t you let him do that for you today?

Be encouraged my friends as God works in your life to make it that fully, beautiful, colorful light for Him that he desires. Sometimes we have to realize that he can only fill the hole in our lives and that the lines can be erased if we just ask.  As the worship song by Chris Tomlin says so well,

You're a Good, Good Father
It's who you are, it's who you are, it's who you are
And I'm loved by you
It's who I am, it's who I am, it's who I am

Don’t ever give up on letting him love you and transform you.  It’s what he desires to do.  He’s a good Father.

Ramblings of another school year and getting back our first Love

Have you ever noticed that back-to-school season is filled with wonder, the unknown, new clothes, new notebooks, new teachers and for some new lunch boxes?  Wait. Do kids even carry lunch boxes anymore?  My point is that there is just a permeating excitement.  Now for some parents if you have kids returning to school there is an extra spring in your step because, well, your kids are returning back to school. For others there is a dark cloud that looms over you because, well, your kids are returning back to school.  We are all different in how we react to this back-to-school season.  It is a new chapter that is just waiting to be written.

            My daughter returned to school this year to start her senior year in high school.  As excited as I am to see her enjoy this final year and to be able to experience much of it with her as I teach at her school, there is a sense of a chapter ending when I think of this new season.  A few weeks ago I went to the first football game of her senior year in which she cheered.  She will never cheer another first football game again.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to be the parent that cries over things like, “oh, she just ate her last hamburger with pickles and overdone fries for school lunch her senior year.”  But I’ll be honest; I’ll be lamenting some of those lasts of her high school career.  I’ll also be rejoicing with her as the new things in this chapter begin.  She will be doing things like visiting colleges, writing essays for scholarships, filling out college applications, etc.…. So the last chapter of her high school career doesn’t need to be the last chapter of it all.  I’m also looking ahead to the great things that God has planned for her beyond this year. 

            Now I’ve noticed one thing about this back-to-school week that gives me a chuckle every year, and that’s how so many kids will actually et up on time and have their things gathered together and ready to walk out the door with no prodding from mom.  There’s almost a sense of wondering, will this actually be the year that mom won’t have to yell to get her kids moving in the morning?  I hate to be a naysayer but I’m gonna have to say from the experience of having three kids that have done this that the answer is a big NO!  Sorry for that reality.  Come early October, you will be the mom that yells, “If I’ve told you once I’ve told you ten times. Get. Up. Now!!  The next time I come in there I will be squirting water on your face!”  Don’t be sad about this. For you, it might come later like maybe mid -October.  You push them out the door with a quick prayer, throw them a muffin for breakfast as the door shuts and wonder why you just don’t home school.  And for those of you that do homeschool, well, again, from experience, there are other issues you could add to the new chapter. 

            I feel like oftentimes our lives as Christian women are like the back-to-school season.  A new Bible study starts, we get onboard with it and we are so excited and have this wonderful anticipation that we are going to finally become Biblical scholars.  We arrive early to the study, we even clean ourselves up a bit to look presentable and we have our Bibles, highlighters and pen all together and ready to grab at a moments notice.  However, several weeks into the study when it’s not new anymore to us we show up either just as the leader is beginning or maybe slither in a bit late, forgetting to change out of our sweatpants and spending much of the study digging in the bottomless pit of our purses trying to find a pen that works and realizing that we left our highlighter in the car.  Uggg.  We loose our excitement and fervor because the study has revealed some things about us that we don’t like and so we are rebelling back in our own little way deciding that yes, we’ll finish out this study but we’re going to kick and scream in our own way doing it.  It’s like the child that refuses to get out of bed for school in the morning because school now bugs them.

            Why do we sabotage new and exciting things-- these wonderful new chapters in our lives that we have an opportunity to write?  It’s as if we take that pen and start writing a mile a minute and then our pen starts moving slower, and slower and our eyes droop and the pen just scribbles off the side of the page. (I know that this does happen as I sat in the front row of a college class and did just that as the professor stood in front of me and watched the whole thing.)

            Revelations 2:4 in the NAS Bible says, But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.  I used the example of a new school year as that new and exciting thing—that first love if you will.  (Though for many students there’s no love at all there—but stick with me here).  In this new season, as summer comes to a close (I’m sorry, someone had to tell you,) I want to encourage you that if you have left or maybe strayed away a bit from your first love, which in Revelations is speaking of Christ, then what a great time to begin again.  Gain back that excitement that you once had for your relationship with Christ.  Get someone else on board with you to keep you accountable so you won’t be like that Bible study gal that dwindles halfway through, or that student that has to be sprayed with water in order to get moving. 

            The thing I love about being a part of a group of Christian people is that we can and should be encouraging and building each other up.  So you stepped away for a bit.  That’s done and over.  Philippians 3:13 says this, Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. 

            My friends, this is a new season, a new chapter and it’s just waiting for you to jump on board.  You can stay in what I call your “Eeyore moments” or you can plunge forward and start living your purpose.  Don’t worry, God’s got you and he won’t leave you nor will he drop you.  Be encouraged because we are all in this together. 

Don’t judge the brilliance of His artistry from the wrong side of the fabric.

         I’ve been reading parts of the book of Job this past month and the study from First5.org. which is provided by Proverbs 31 ministry.  The thing that I have been reminded of is that Job was an upright and godly man and yet he suffered.

         In the midst of suffering it would seem that those closest to you would be your biggest help and cheerleaders. Not in Job’s case. I’m not going to lie.  As I listen to Job’s friends in the midst of his suffering I don’t find them to be very encouraging.  In fact, I find them to be awful, horrible, rotten friends whom I would never want near me in my hurts.  Why? Because they were too easy to give up on Job and blame his suffering on something he had done.  Sometimes bad things happen to good, God-fearing people.  It just does. And sometimes bad things happen to ungodly-fearing people.  It just does.

         This week I’ve been watching news footage of Hurricane Harvey.  My heart breaks as I see people suffering, crying, and losing everything.  I was struck, especially by the picture I saw of the older people in the nursing home just sitting there waist deep in water.  How could God allow such hurt, such tragedy?  These are same questions that have been asked for centuries whenever there is suffering. So where was God when Job suffered?  Where is God as the people suffer through Harvey? God hasn’t left. God was with Job and is with the people suffering through Hurricane Harvey-- through the pain, suffering, doubt, fear and anguish.

         I want to share with you some things that I have learned from the scriptures and studies of First5.  Click on the scriptures and read them.  They will also take you to the study from First5.org

1. You can’t try to guess or speculate why people suffer. You don’t have to try to add words of wisdom or the first thing that comes to your mind or try to explain the situation. Just comfort people in their hurt.  Galatians 6:2

2.  When you find yourself in trials, tribulations and turmoil, do you know God’s character enough to be able to trust in Him? As we look at Job, we see from his own words that he was in tumult.  Job 6:2-3.  Glynnis Witwer says that the truth that settled Job was not discovered in the dark. Instead, Job was sustained through the dark, by the truth he learned in the light. There is no way we can fully prepare our hearts for what is to come, but we can ground them in the truth before trouble arrives. We can soak our minds in the truth of God’s character, His promises throughout Scripture and remember our testimonies of His faithfulness. 

3.  Know that you can express your feelings to God and he will hear your cries (Psalm 34:4) and that when you seek him you will find him. (Jeremiah 29:13).  Throughout scripture we find people crying out to God and then finding his precious comfort.

 

4.  In the midst of Jobs suffering Job he realizes that God has ordered his life just the way that it is—hurt and all. His suffering allowed him to realize new aspects of God’s character. Job 9:5-7.  We have little understanding in our minds to understand God (Romans 11:34) and the big picture that he sees that we don’t.  Here is a scripture that I refer to often when I just don’t understand why things happened the way that they do.  

Isaiah 55:8-9  ⁸  For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

⁹  For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

5.  Job also realized, and you can too, that God was/is in control even when other’s around him try to convince him that God was not. He understood the amazingness of God’s character. (Romans 11:33, Psalm 139:6, Psalm 113:4-7)

6. The Process is part of the point shares Whitney Capps from the First5 study in Day 13.  In the midst of Job’s confusion, he clings to God’s character. As we read through Job’s replies, look for what he says about God.

Throughout his rebuttals in Job 6, Job 9, Job 10 and Job 12, Job extols the attributes and character of God. Here are a few of the things Job says:

God is worthy of loyalty and faith.

God is the righteous judge.

God is the answer-giver.

God alone has wisdom, might, counsel and understanding.

7.  Your hope is in God alone. This is a tough one to grasp even when we aren’t in the midst of suffering and tragedy.  I’ve often heard people say that it was when they hit rock bottom, when everything seems to be stripped away that that is when they realized that they couldn’t find their hope in anything or anyone else.  It was God alone. Job realizes this in Job 19:25-26. He couldn’t find hope in his friends, his wife, or even himself…. just God.  He doesn’t understand why he has suffered so much, but he trusts God for the outcome.

I want to leave you again with a story from Whitney Capps.  

She says,

“One of my favorite memories as a little girl was watching my grandmother cross-stitch. I remember the first time I watched her nimble fingers stitch a mess of x’s into a masterpiece. I usually sat on the floor at her feet looking at the underside of her work-in-progress.  We had a little game where I would try to guess what she was making. But the underside was such a mess! From my perspective it was an indistinguishable mishmash of string and knots. But what was utter confusion to me was perfectly known to her. She was looking at her work of art from the front. I was only looking at the back.  Don’t judge the brilliance of His artistry from the wrong side of the fabric. 

Whatever your hurt or struggle is today, you can cling to the fact that God, the brilliant artist sees things from the right side.  Oh, and the folks in the nursing home up to their waists in water?  The next day I saw a picture of them rescued, dry, clean and happy.  God’s got us folks, don’t let people or circumstances tell you differently.

Thanks to First5 for reminder of many of the scriptures and insights shared here on today’s blog.  Download the app First5 and work through some of these studies yourself.