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The Musings of a Stubborn Believer

Category: gifts (page 3 of 4)

Scars

February 15, 2011 / / 5 Comments
Deep sigh. 
Silence.
Staring at nothingness. 
I leaned back in my desk chair while the reality settled in… 
“…He is pleading His wounds—‘My hands, my hands!’ ‘I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.’”*
And all at once I closed my eyes and I could almost see Him… 
–See Him standing in the throne room, turning for just a moment from the painful sight of yet another failure, to face His Father.
With tears in His eyes, and tears in His voice–
“Abba–
 Abba, My hands…
Look at My hands!”
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  
You and I know those beautiful hands were forever ruined saving us. A friend of mine once noted that they might be more than just perpetually scabbed. What if they are permanently disfigured? 
My hands tremble, and my eyes fill with tears, even as I type. 
But you know what moves me yet more?
It’s the second part. 
“I have graven thee…” 
It’s my name that is carved on His beautiful hands. Carved with a Roman nail.   
My name is a scar on His perfect Person. 
But He is not ashamed of me. 
Indeed not. Rather, He holds me up before His Father, and says “Look at My hands…”
And “swift angels are sent to minister to fallen man, to lift up and to sustain.”*
This is Love. 
Only love can call scars trophies. 

*{RH January 4, 1887, par. 15}

Heaven’s Hands

January 31, 2011 / / 6 Comments
You are called to be Heaven’s hands… and Heaven’s voice.
This is happiness…
___________________________
I was already in my pajamas. In fact I had just plopped down on the couch in the living room, Spiritual Leadership in one hand, and my iPad in the other, waiting for family time.
Then the dispatcher down at the county seat hit a button on her console… The button that gets us moving faster than any other button in the world. 
And the pager came alive. 
“An ambulance is requested at _____for a s__ty-___ year old female with difficulty breathing…”
So much for the PJs. 


Joshua, Natasha and I were out the door by the time she finished repeating the tone. 
And driving down the road towards town, I prayed the same prayer that is in our hearts every time we jump into our uniforms and grab our radios. 
“…and let us be Your hands to our patient this evening. In Jesus’ name…” 
She really was in trouble. Enough trouble that when we got her in the rig, she got three lines of oxygen instead of one. But God knew she needed more than just our medications and a ride to the nearest hospital. 
She needed a song. 
It was the farthest thing from our minds…  
But no matter. He has His ways… And before we were halfway to the hospital, the three of us found ourselves singing O Lord, You’re Beautiful… 
And she was leaning back on the cot still wheezing heavily, but with her eyes closed and a smile on her face. 
When we finished, the panic was gone. She said she could die in peace… because her angels had sung for her.
I just looked at her. 

I promise you, we’re not angels. For one thing, angels sing in tune. We could barely hear each other from the three corners of the back of the ambulance with all the road noise…
But I learned that sometimes all He needs is for us to be willing to lift the lid on protocol for just one second and move our lips so that He can sing… 

By the time our charting was done and we left the ER, every staff member there had heard the tale of her angels.
All I could do was shake my head.
And wonder at what we might have missed… 
We are called to be Heaven’s hands… and Heaven’s voice.
This is happiness. And an honor entirely undeserved.


An hour later I pulled back through the dark streets of our quiet little town, and up to the white metal building we affectionately call “the barn.” 
Thank You, Jesus. Thank You for riding this ambulance today.

“Catron S.O. this is 2*67 on Davenport”
“Catron S.O. on Davenport, Go ahead 2*67”

“Good evening ma’am, we’re back in service.”
“10-4. Thank you. Welcome home sir.” 




God is Good… [And the year in photos]

January 12, 2011 / / 0 Comments
God is good.
Oh, so good.
That’s my theme song these days… 
My feet are finally “back to normal,” (after the miles logged in dress shoes in Baltimore :)) but my heart has only started singing. 
Though GYC flew by in somewhat of a blur, God still found ways to articulate His grace to me… Sometimes through thunderous throng, sometimes through stunning silence… 
Every time, right when I most needed a hand to hold. 
When a third of us flew home on a few hours notice partway through to be with my dying grandfather, that’s when grace swept me right off my feet, in more ways than one. It still makes my heart warm to think about it. 
He used sandwiches. One offered, and one bought for me even though I thought I wasn’t hungry. He used a 120-voice choir on its knees. He used the tears in a stranger’s eyes when she said how she’d been blessed. He used Elder Wilson’s compassionate words and prayers. He used the sound of 5,500 voices coming towards me during closing song. He used the prayer room. He used my amazing committee members. He used my little sister’s head resting on my shoulder. He used three hundred smiles from strangers, a “picnic” lunch with old friends and new faces, a solid vote of confidence…
And he used my own weakness. 
Yes, God is good. 
Oh thank You, Your Grace…
Do it again next year. 

___________________________________
For those of you with interest in getting a taste of our year in photos… 🙂



Australia

December 17, 2010 / / 7 Comments
Home. 
A strange mix of happy and sad I’ve never felt before…
Try loving, and praying, and preaching, and crying for souls… 
And being loved by them, and then saying goodbye knowing there’s a good chance you will never meet again on this side of the gates of pearl. 
Oh, I know.
I’ve done it before too. But this time was different. 
A part of me is still in Australia. 
And that part of me will never come home.
Maybe it was relinquishing claims to those hearts and hands 
to trust them to the grip of One infinitely stronger and wiser…
Or maybe it was just realizing how small I am…
Or maybe it was something else…
Whatever the case, it makes my heart burn for Heaven.
Oh, let’s be faithful dear friends…
I want to meet you on the other side.

Thanksgiving…

November 26, 2010 / / 4 Comments
I have this little theory: 
Remembrance is the better part of Thanksgiving.
It’s far too easy to say “thank you” for the blessings in front of our eyes, 
while forgetting the sacrifices that purchased them for us. 
I’m pretty sure when the pilgrim fathers sat down to that first feast, 
their thankfulness for the provision was sharpened by their
memories of starvation.
(as indeed, they ate within sight of the graves of more than half of their original number)
It would be well for us to remember…
…remember smiles as well as tears. 
And be thankful for them both.

More to Give. Much more…

November 10, 2010 / / 3 Comments
It was a simple little lesson… Brought to me by the most gracious people I have ever met. But it stirs me even now–
He or she who has lost, and yet loved, may indeed have less to lose… 
But also unspeakably more to give. 
I have learned that gentleness, selflessness, real warmth and grace are seldom owned in their depth by those who have not tasted sorrow. 
They are trophies won in the face of pain and loss.  
But they make their possessors the richest, most beautiful people in the world…
So, to my new friends– 
Your love through loss has been the gain of thousands…
Thank you.

Providence at it’s best…

July 18, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Isaiah 41
I love that word– Providence.
It’s ultimate power giving of itself… And that, provision more than sufficient.
There is no promise that we will never lack… Indeed, if we never lacked, there would be no need for a promise. No need for Power. No need for Grace…
We will lack. We must thirst…
But we need remain thirsty only for a moment. Just long enough to recognize our need… And then, Providence kicks in.
And not with a little glass of water either…
“When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.”
(Isaiah 41:17-18)
Where there is thirst, He creates a river…

Not Mine…

July 14, 2010 / / 1 Comment
Isaiah 39
Boast not of those things which are not yours anyway… 
Hezekiah did, and his son lost his crown, and his people lost their freedom. 
As I sit here at my desk listening to the birds sing thorough open glass doors and delighting in the fresh crispness of mountain air just after sunrise, I glance around my desk– Of all places in this house, here sits the greatest concentration of things I call “my own.”  
Of course almost all my assets under this roof are found here… Thousands in hardware, thousands in software…
But of greater value are the many little treasures found here… A handmade plaque, a pencil sharpener from Australia, a music box, picture frames, a Beanie Baby kitten named Zip, a little button boy named Pillsbury, penholders, notes, quotes, bookmarks… 
The picture of my best friend that just flitted across the screen, the list of friends I pray for from Germany, the list of friends that pray for me, here…
All these reminders– Reminders of the greatest treasures I have. 
All of them, people. 
But they’re not mine! 
They belong to the same God I belong to… I must remember that. 
The moment I forget, they become a liability to me, and I to them. 
If my heart is God’s, and all my gifts are God’s, then together we are all at His disposal, and we all share in His glory…
In the mean time, “My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.” (Psalms 34:2)


One Little Digression

May 11, 2010 / / 2 Comments
Pardon me if digress from my normative tenor momentarily…
There are plenty of blogs that serve as little more than a landing pad for 100 perfectly unrelated YouTube videos, and this is not one of them.
But the EMT in me wants to assert itself just this once to make one simple plea: 
Please wear your seatbelt. I’m serious… 


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Frightened? I would have been too.
Wouldn’t you have been, if you had been in the vehicle when the tires started whining on dry pavement like a bottle rocket? Imagine looking out the window when it launched off of the bank sideways. Split seconds must have seemed like minutes…and the cycle of light and dark must have well reflected the fight between hopes and fears as the vehicle silently rolled in midair. 
Or maybe your eyes would have been closed…
And maybe his eyes were still closed when the tree trunk started them spinning (still in midair) on 2 axes, not one. Maybe when all was still again the blood and broken glass convinced him to keep them that way. 
Yes, I think I would have been frightened. Especially if I hadn’t yet seen my sixth birthday.   
It took me a few minutes to get to him, (being outnumbered by victims at a scene by a factor of 2 is not ideal) but by the time the rest of our colleagues got there with the ambulances, he had taught me something beautiful about service, and about life… 
It was in his face. Wide eyes told me the story. He was terribly afraid. And even in the bystander’s car with the heat all the way up, he was shaking like a little leaf.
“Hi buddy, my name is Sean. I work on the ambulance. Can I help you?”
“Mhm…”
“What’s your name? Does this hurt? Ok, hold really still for me. Good boy… I’m just going to hold your head like this… Is this your brother?”
“Yeah… We were, we were just going to the lake…”
But he wouldn’t stop shaking. Even after 5 minutes. 
Finally–
“Is my mommy still in that car?” 
Oh, I get it…
“Yes. But she should be out soon. They’re working on it right now.”
“But is it going to explode?”
I wish you could have seen his little face. Scratched and swollen as it was, to me it was the ultimate theater of Grace for one beautiful moment. The moment when I said “Oh no, definitely not. They’re taking care of her.” 
His neck relaxed.
“Ohhh… good.”
That’s when I decided few privileges compare to healing hurts, and calming fears…
Thanks, my little friend.
I’m so glad you all made it home…

I am Persuaded!

April 4, 2010 / / 1 Comment

I love this. You are free.



He said so.

Read it really slowly…


Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.


AMEN, and AMEN


(Quoted: Romans 8:35, 37-39, I John 5:4, I Corinthians 15:57, John 8:36, John 8:32, II Timothy 1:7)

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