I’m not sure what I have to say.

Beginning in January, I served as the worship leader at our local Presbyterian church.  The commitment consisted of leading worship (that is, the entire service, including preaching) every Sunday and providing pastoral care for acute needs.  This past Sunday was my final Sunday in that position.  I loved it.  It was a blessing.  But it was entirely too much for us to add on to our schedule under our current circumstances.

So, this is my first week since January–minus three Sunday’s of vacation/study leave–that I don’t have to write a sermon.  I almost said “that I don’t have a sermon to write,” but I’m not sure that’s true.  I may very well have a sermon to write.  I sermon floating around in my brain.  I’m going to miss the discipline of having a passage of Scripture to reflect on for the week, swimming in my head all week, insights coming and going.  So, I’d like to still do that.  And I’m hoping–though not making any promises–that I’ll have more spare thoughts to spill here on my blog.

I’d like to still use the lectionary as my starting point–as I’ve been doing.  Not because I think there’s anything sacred about the lectionary, and often it annoys me by omitted some more difficult verses, but because it’s just a good place to start.  A ready place to start.  So, I won’t have to “waste” time trying to find where to start.  But, the nice part about not having to preach on Sunday is I won’t have passages written down in the bulletin at the beginning of the week and then spend the rest of the week feeling compelled to stick to it.  I get to follow rabbit trails to my heart’s content.

Now, before anyone gets excited, know this about me:  I’m great at coming up with ideas, I’m not so good at follow-through.  So, I’ve set a goal for myself, but I might not actually fulfill it.  In theory, this sounds great.  We’ll see.

I had some thoughts this morning, and thought I’d just throw them out into the abyss of cyberspace.  They may not lead anywhere.  I was reading a blog where the prayer requested was that the children of this particular ministry would give their hearts to Jesus.  A common phrase, a common plea.  But this morning, what came immediately to my mind is the verse from Psalms (24:1).  “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains.”

So, the earth and everything in it is God’s, but still we have to give him our hearts.  How does that work?  Isn’t my heart his to take? Don’t my children–hearts and all–belong to God?  Why is my heart, their heart, your heart off limits to God to the extent that you have to give it to him?  This confuses me.  It stumps me.  Because, to me, it’s all Gods.  The earth and all that is in it.

And the thought that I have to count on my kids’ own sense, wisdom, humility, what-ev-er, to give their hearts to the Lord in order that they won’t spend an eternity separated from God scares me to death.  Especially since I suck at this parenting thing and my ability to parent them will–to some extent–determine how well or ill equipped they are to give God anything.

I can’t handle the pressure.  I’m going to hide my head back in my Calvinist sandbox and trust that when Scripture says “the earth is the Lord’s and all that it contains,” it includes my kids’ and their hearts and their lives and their souls.

And I’m going to trust that when Scripture says the Promise is for me and for my children, that Scripture really means it. And I’m going to cling to that promise and live in my hope and I’m going to tell my kids who they are. Children of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and called to a life of glorifying God and enjoying him forever.

And I’m going to pray that they never know a minute of a day when they don’t feel and know the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Never know a minute when they are not convinced–assured and convicted–that nothing will separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Not death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, including their own stupidity, pride, stubbornness, or even apathy.

I might be crazy.  I might be under a delusion.  But it’s the only way I can sleep at night.  To God alone be the Glory.

Ministry of Reality M – - er Tuesday

So, I can never seem to post on Monday.  It’s our Saturday.  Or Sunday.  Or Saturday and Sunday all tied up together, the day we collapse into a heap.

So, Tuesday it is.  This week at least.

We just had some of the busiest funnest craziest days.  County fair, electronic wonderland mouse-hosted play space, two amusement parks, an overnight trip to family/friends house (a sermon written and delivered), all between Wednesday afternoon and Monday night.  I don’t live like this.  This is more than my kids do in any given year.  This is more than my kids did in one three-year stretch between 2004 and 2007.  Oh.  And except for the final day, which included the second amusement park, my husband was out of town for these days.

What better chance than this for a Ministry of Reality blog post?

I thought I’d focus on today’s nutrition, continuing to bury my head in the sand over the who-could-count-that-high? number of hours of TV today.

As an indication of the depths of my exhaustion, the extent of the depletion of my energy and enthusiasm, and the heights of my apathy, I share the following:

Our lunch today is brought to you by the color white. In various configurations, my children have eaten white cheese puffs, white popcorn, and white macaroni and cheese (both the cheese and the macaroni are white).  And Hannah kept the white theme going by drinking about a quart of milk today.

You know what is the craziest part of all?  I feel compelled to justify the healthfulness of it all by sharing that the cheese puffs are all natural, the popcorn is homemade using organic, raw coconut oil, and the mac ‘n’ cheese is organic.

Puh-leeeeese!

My kids are now happily, contentedly ensconced on the couch, watching the day’s zillionth minute of TV, entranced in a white-induced stupor.

It’s a good day. 

Really real.

It occurred to me right after I published my Ministry of Reality post on Tuesday that it really wasn’t very Ministry of Reality-y.  I waxed poetic about the joys of sleep deprivation.  You’ve got to be kidding me!  It sucks to be tired, even if you’re doing it for a good reason.  Really.  It sucks.  In fact it sucks the life right out of you.  I forgot to say all that.  To make that post really real.

So I thought I’d make up for it by posting some reality of today.  I’m ready to sell my children.  I just wrote my husband an email telling him I had and received enough of a profit to renovate our bathrooms, replace our 86 year old windows, and have enough left over for him to retire tomorrow.  When reality bites you in the butt, dream big, I say.

Much screaming.  Much gnashing of teeth.  Accompanied by some intentional torture with a few lies tossed in.  And what do you have?  A crazy mother ready to resign.

I would like to continue this train of thought, ending it with some uplifting thoughts about these being the good ol’ days (and they are) or how God is blessing me through this time (of utter insanity) (and he is).  But maybe I’ll just end it with the vision of a lady hiding herself in her dining room, living an imaginary life through the pretty screen in front of her, paying no attention to the bathing-suited, life-vested, helmeted girlies running through the backyard sprinkler, and wishing she knew how to make a Margarita and lamenting the fact that even if she did know, she probably shouldn’t be drinking one at 3:00 PM when she’s the supposed “responsible one” at home charged with the care of three small children.

Yup.  That’s all I’ve got.  Just one big ol’ run-on sentence.

Ministry of Reality Monday, the morning after

So, apparently, there was no reality yesterday. I was just living in a dreamworld. And all was butterflies and roses.

Actually . . . there was a butterfly in my house yesterday. Ruthie somehow caught it the day before. Yes. Ruthie. Caught a butterfly. And no one knows how. She just showed up inside with a butterfly in Hannah’s butterfly habitat. Who could know how the three year old was able to capture the elusive butterfly? So, we kept the butterfly all that day, with Ruthie occasionally shaking the stuffing out of the net habitat thingie. That evening we put in a sugar water solution for it, as per the instructions of the well-informed eight-year-old Boy. Then yesterday afternoon, I was informed by my dear husband that at some point during the day our very delicate flower of a third-born pinched four of the butterfly’s legs off. “And the remaining ones are both on the same side of his body,” adds the Man, as if a lopsided butterfly is somehow worse than one who has to drag himself around. The butterfly mysteriously disappeared in the night. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

So, that had absolutely nothing to do with my intended goal of this post. Sometimes my brain just wanders off course, veers off my intended path. Probably not unlike a lopsided butterfly . . .

Anywhooo . . . I went with the “morning after” title because I lived my reality du jour–or is it du semaine, given the goal of this little blog project?–last night. Back when I first entered the wonderful land of Mommyhood, I was under the delusion er impression that the absolute worst mommy mistake one could ever make was to invite one’s offspring to sleep in the marital bed. Don’t do it. Not even once. They’ll never leave. It will ruin your marriage. I don’t even know all the reasons I was given, but it was a huge No-No.

Obviously I went against the grain. The Boy would not, could not sleep next to another person. So, with him it was no problem to maintain that carved-in-stone rule. His first sister, however, would not, could not NOT sleep next to another person. And you know what? Neither can her father. So, out of desperation and inspired by some new-found crunch imaginary friends, I put Hannah in bed with me. And there she slept. Ever so well. So, we attached her annex and away we went. Both of us sleeping better than we had since several months before she was born. That’s where Ruth started, in the annex, the crib attached to our bed, but in time we discovered she, like her brother, preferred to sleep alone. Lo and behold! our babies appeared to have their own little personalities and preferences. Go figure.

Fast forward a couple of years. Everyone has settled into sleeping in his or her own bed. They each go to sleep at night rather quickly and easily. Except the used-to-be-a-perfect-sleeper Boy. Who has fits of insomnia at times. Not unlike his father. Go figure. The mini-me Boy can experience the same sorts of sleep disturbances as his predecessor. Even though he’s just a kid. Apparently he didn’t get the memo that insomnia can’t impact you until you’ve hit a certain age. I guess that age is somewhere around the point at which it will no longer impact your parents. Not until the age of “you’re on your own, kid.” But I digress . . .

Mostly everyone sleeps great, right through the night, right in their own beds, despite all the dire warnings of eight years ago. But sometimes, one or the other will have their sleep disturbed by stresses of developmental spurt, or changes in routine or life’s circumstances, or for no real apparent reason. Sound familiar? I’m pretty sure these are the sorts of things that inspired pharmaceuticals to invent Ambien. Except, again, these sleep disturbances are only permitted once one has passed the age of “you’re on your own kid.”

And now, 660 words in, I get to my point. Between last night and the night before, every kid in the house (and in the night it felt like surely there must be thirty of ‘em in this place) had a sleep disturbance. Vacation, while fun, has certainly exacted a toll on the children’s little psyches. Isaac and Ruth both are suffering some severe sleep deprivation. Isaac’s results in insomnia. Ruthie’s results in random acts of violence against her siblings, but that’s a-whole-nother post.

I know it involved two nights, but it’s all one big blur. Maybe it was three nights. Yes. Three. Mostly as a result of getting back on track after vacation. One night, when it was super, crazy hot, Isaac and Hannah both went to sleep in our bed because I didn’t have the heart to make them try to fall asleep in their hot attic bedroom when my bedroom has an A/C unit. So, when Ry and I were ready to go to bed, Ry picked up and carried upstairs both sleeping children. (He really must stop doing this with the 80-lb 8-year-old, however.) About an hour later one of them returned, we all fell back to sleep. And this is when the last three nights all look very similar. At some point, I wake up and ask Ry to return the sleeping kid back to his/her own bed. Mostly because Ruthie is in the habit of coming in sometime shortly after the sun rises, thinking it’s actually morning and not 5:30, and if she’s not disturbed, she’ll lie next to me and sleep another hour or two (or even three, but that only happens on Sundays, when I need to be in the pulpit at 8:30).

So, with Ruthie’s habit ever in mind, I kick the older two out at some point. With our new King-sized bed, I barely notice they’re there, I can sleep and sleep. But for the last three nights, it seemed that a half-hour after we’d return one to his own bed, another would arrive. And again, put her back, then the third one comes, and so on until, I’m pretty sure, the whole neighborhood has shown up in our bed at some point during the last three nights.

Crazy? Yes. Tiring? A little. But you know what else it is? Sweet. And warm. And cozy. And butterflies (with all appendages accounted for) and roses. Because it’s real. Because sometimes people have trouble sleeping. Sometimes our nightmares wake us up, sometimes the stresses of our lives keep us up. But how wonderful to grow up in a world, and continue living in a world, where when the things that go bump! in the night can be soothed away with compassion and love and warm–though groggy–words of comfort and snuggles abounding. Don’t we all want to live in that world? I do.

And some day, very very soon, my children will stop crawling into bed with me at night. And, if every older friend I’ve ever had can be trusted, I will miss it. I will miss the late-night snuggles. I will miss the Super Mom ability to soothe all ills. In the meantime, I hold my babies close and pray that they will someday find someone else who will not mind a little sleep disruption for the sake of offering them comfort as their much bigger, much scarier adult-sized boogie men crawl out of the shadows in the night.

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Ministry of Reality Monday, Vacation Edition

We are on vacation.  One would think we would leave our reality behind and have an other-worldly trip of bliss whilst enjoying our days of together time in some mountains not our own.

Ha!  One would be wrong.  Very wrong.  Because, really, nothing brings out Reality like a trip with three small kids.  Shall I start with the never-ending drive?  I could.  But it would be so depressing.  And long.  The short version is the drive wasn’t.  We’ve had some trips where we average 50 miles per hour over the course of 529-mile journey, stops included.  This time we averaged just under 20 mph.  Ryan tells me we could have taken the stage coach to make better time.  Now, we did stop for an overnight in a hotel where we all got some really good sleep.  However.  That’s not the only problem.

Why is it that two girls who have to be begged to empty their bladders so as to maintain health and wellness every other day of the year needed to stop every half-hour during our 665 mile journey?  Why is it that it took us two hours to drive the first 50 miles?  Oh.  I know why.  It’s construction season in my home state.  And we had to drive past all those pretty orange barrels.  It had to be simply a barrel display, because I didn’t see a lick of construction.

All in all it took us 27.5 hours to arrive at our destination, 2 hours of which were spent listening to the song “Remarkable Cows.”  Now, I realize I can’t be trusted with numbers, but that is a factual account.  2 hours.  One song.  The way I figure it, since Ruthie sits in the wayyyy back of the minivan by herself, she gets to pick the music.  And she really, really likes “Remarkable Cows” and screams at everyone to sing it with her.  Fun times.  If you’re wondering what music accompanied the other 13 hours in the car, that would be “Mine Favorite Bob Songs.”  AKA, Veggie Tales.  I did get to listen to one whole Ella Fitzgerald CD (during which Hannah pointed out that one of the songs sounded like the music from Dumbo and I thought that was pretty cool) and, if I recall correctly, two other CD’s of my choosing.  Just one time through with each of them.  What we did learn, during the last 20 minutes of the journey, is that Ruthie’s quite the fan of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Oh.  I wasn’t going to talk about the drive.  I guess I did.  Oops.

What I was going to talk about is the fact that all three of our kids were in bed by 7:40 last night.  Asleep.  So I went out to get some Ben & Jerry’s for Ry and me (we eat ice cream pretty much every night before bed.  And sometimes I actually wonder why I’ve gained all this weight since marrying this man.).  I also took advantage of the fact that in the state we’re visiting one can buy Adult Beverages pretty much anywhere.  I think the lemonade stands are likely selling the hard stuff.

So, here we were, Ry and me, getting the kids back on their regular sleep schedule, ready to hunker down and enjoy some booze and frozen, sweetened fatty goodness, and lo and behold! the Boy has a night terror.  Followed by his mostly-conscious-but-still-not-right crying jag.  So, he came down to sit with us on the couch for a bit.  Then we sent him back to bed.  His head can’t have had more time than to just touch his pillow, when Hannah came walking out of her bedroom (they’re sleeping in separate rooms this trip), whimpering that she couldn’t sleep.  The timing was impeccable.  Then they repeated it, once more, for good measure: Hannah to bed, Isaac back downstairs, like a seamless passing of a baton. If you saw it on a movie screen, you would have declared it contrived.  Unless, of course, you have children.  Then you’d just call it Reality.

I so wanted to end my blog post there. I really did. Because it’s so pithy. And witty. But you know what? It’s not Reality. Because the reality is, I’m writing this on Sunday evening, when “last night” took place, so that I don’t take time away from my kids to write it on Monday, and it’s 10:20 PM and I last saw a kid about 5 minutes ago when Hannah came out of her room for the I-don’t-know-how-many-th time. She had been out and back in and back out and hungry and fed a cheese stick (teeth be damned, tonight) and sent back to bed then back out and lonely (despite the fact that her little sister is in the bunk bed beneath her, where she begged to have her sleep, refusing to share the big bed with her upstairs) and back to bed upstairs in the same room with Isaac (could that be the problem? She’s used to sleeping with Isaac?) and back downstairs and hot so back to her original bed and back out because her water bottle got stuck behind the bed (somehow, I’m not sure how).

I’d like to yell and threaten and throw a fit, but the Reality is, it’s late and I’m exhausted, but you don’t see me going upstairs to bed. Nope. I’m too charged up with being in a new and strange place, it sounds funny and smells strange and we have a big day to look forward to tomorrow and the bed is squishy. And I still have my usual bed-mate, and don’t have to sleep alone. It’s hard to get upset with a five-year-old girl who’s having the same sleep problem I am but who isn’t allowed to help herself unwind and relax with the use of an Adult Beverage.

Poor baby. I think she needs a snuggle. I do.

If you go to soggymommy, you can find more Ministry of Reality blog posts. And you can add your own to her Blog Hop thing. I can’t figure out how to add the thing to my post.

It’s Monday again. I must be Real.

I don’t know about the choice of Monday as the Ministry of Reality blogging day.  It’s Monday.  After Sunday.  The day when all brains in this house close up shop and hang up the sign, “Gone Fishin’.”  Though, maybe that makes it the best day for my reflections on reality.

Part of the Ministry of Reality blog project, as I see it anyway, is to counteract–I suppose counterbalance is a kinder word, or more neutral word–counterbalance those really pretty MomBlogs where all of life goes so smoothly, the children do all their chores, the mom does all the cooking and sewing and baking and still finds time to exercise and knit and volunteer three-thousand hours a week and color her hair a shiny shade of blond using all natural ingredients she grows herself in her backyard sustainable garden that grows enough to feed the orphans downtown.  Or something like that.

Those blogs evoke in me a whirlwind of envy and shame and annoyance and covetousness and laziness and shame and, most of all, exhaustion.  So, that can’t be healthy, hunh?

I like to think my blog has never crossed the line into that level of pressure.  I don’t see how it could.  In that way, this Ministry of Reality Monday is a little tricky, given the fact that my life is very real already.  My house is a mess–all the time–my children beat each other on a regular basis, watch far too much TV, have eaten far too many hot dogs in the last month, I don’t think I, personally, have done a load of laundry or cooked a meal in weeks.  Now, mind you, my husband has been off from work for several weeks, so don’t worry, we’re not starving.  On the contrary, we’re surviving quite well on a steady diet of buttermilk Belgian waffles, buttermilk pancakes, Nutella-filled ebelskiver, ganache-filled-chocolate-buttercream-frosted chocolate cupcakes, ganache-topped chocolate cake, and various grilled meats.  We’re fine.

So, what’s a girl to talk about to make a Monday more real than the other six days of the week?  Well, I think mostly, for me anyway, it’s a good opportunity to just stop and think and realize that life is life.  Life can be difficult, life can be fun, life can be pretty and life can be ugly.  I don’t have to always be on top of everything, I don’t have to run a perfect little household machine here.  Because my household is made up of people.  And people are messy.  On all sorts of levels.

So, today, instead of looking around my house and lamenting over what a mess it is, going through my daily–sometimes hourly–”I’m So Bad at this Homemaking Thing” song and dance, wasting my energy trying to live up to some crazy, external standard, I’ll just look around at my cute kids and my handsome husband and revel in the fun we have together and the love we share and enjoy the adventure we’re on.

Ministry of Reality Mondays

Starting on a Tuesday.  Which is really fitting, if you think about it.

Some of my dearest of dear imaginary friends (well, one’s not really imaginary, and one is once-removed from real), have decided to begin a Ministry of Reality Monday blogging project.  I agreed to sign on.  Here are links to others who have described it better than I can (or, at the very least, with far fewer words):  the originator of the term “Ministry of Reality,” the originator of the blogging idea, and my friend Jo, who’s also joining in.  And I will add other friends here, as I find them:  Soggy Mommy, Knit Together.

There will be more.  And, apparently, there’s this way to link things together or have all the links to others’ Ministry of Reality Monday blogs on everyone else’s blog.  I think it’s safe to also invite others to have their own Ministry of Reality Mondays on their blogs too. I know so little, I don’t even know how to describe it.

But I like it.  From the moment I heard my friend describe her Ministry of Reality, I fell in love.  I fell in love with the name.  It put into words–succinct words!–that which I’ve been trying to do since the earliest days of my pastor’s wife journey, during my husband’s seminary years.

From the moment my co-workers at Big N Giant Booksellers found out my husband was in seminary, out came the cart-loads of assumptions.  Assumptions about me, about my husband, about our lives, about our faith.  Swoosh!  A barrier would be pulled up between us, like those windows that separate the limo driver from the passengers.  You know the ones I mean?  They generally show up in movies before the passengers start to . . . er . . . get to know one another in the back of the limo and they’d like a little privacy.  That’s what would be drawn up right before my very eyes.  My husband is in seminary, therefore I am Other, must be kept at arms’ length.  I am not exactly sure why.  I was suddenly not safe to be with.  Was it because I couldn’t possibly be any fun?  Was it because I was going to carry judgment with me wherever I went?  Was it because my very presence brought conviction for the things they knew from their childhoods they shouldn’t be doing?

I don’t know what it was.  And I still don’t.  I still don’t know what it is that makes people think I’m so special simply by virtue of my husband’s (and, now my) vocation.  I don’t think it makes me special.  I think it makes my schedule more hectic.  I think it means it’s always Sunday in our home, as there is always a sermon to be written.  But other than the ways this particular job affects our schedule and home life, I don’t see the difference.  And I have made a career out of making sure other people see it too.  See that I’m human.  See that my husband is human.  And now I have a name for my ministry.  Ministry of Reality.

While my friends will be sharing stories of their household and parenting moments of reality, I will be doing the same.  But I also feel strongly about another component to this Ministry of Reality thing.  Faith.  Specifically, Christian Faith. So, my Ministry of Reality Mondays might include some reflections on that.  The Ministry of Reality Faith.

I’ve seen too many instances of people outside the church perceiving people in the church as Holier Than Thou.  I’ve seen too many instances of people within the church killing themselves–sometimes literally–to be good enough, to have the right stuff, the right attitude, the right family structure, the right wardrobe, etc. etc. etc.  To prove themselves genuine Christians.  And I’ve seen too many people all around who believe that the Christian faith is about some list of rules, some set of requirements, a to-do and to-don’t list.  And it’s just not.  And it saddens me that the world would see it that way; and it sickens me that the church would ever portray it that way.

We’re all a mess.  Not one of us has got it all together, no not one.  The Good News of the Gospel is that we don’t have to.  Someone else got it together for us.  Ours is to revel in that and to extend the same generosity to all we encounter.

So, I’ve resurrected my blog.  In the hopes of intentionally spending at least Mondays thinking and reflecting and sharing my own Ministry of Reality.  A home of chaos with a three-year-old who refuses to stay clothed, a five-year-old who is insisting she is a super hero whose day-to-day persona is a teen-aged girl getting read to go to college, and an 8 year-old who’s sick of the teen-aged five-year-old and is struggling against the desire to lock her in the basement.  And a couple of supposed grown-ups–though how we ended up the ones with the title, I’ll never know–trying to slog through this life together, bringing Glory to God in spite of ourselves.  That is my reality.

You have no idea . . .

Those are the words I heard from my Boy tonight:  “You have no idea how much I forget!”

This came in response to Hannah’s declaration upon entering the bathroom after Isaac exited:  “Isaac, you forgot to flush the toilet!”  I said, “Isaac.  How can you forget to flush the toilet?!”

“You have no idea how much I forget!”

. . . . .

Um.  I reflected for a bit.  On the fact that my boy seems a little detached from his surroundings.  How his brain is always, always whirring, taking him places far away from where his body is lumbering along.  How he loses track of what he’s doing with his body, tripping here, dropping there, walking away from the task at hand . . . all because his mind is racing with a new concept, a new idea he needs to conquer or develop or simply swim around in.

“You have no idea how much I forget.”

Um.  I just might.

Gospel parallels

I wanted you to experience the Scriptures as I experienced them this week.

I started with the Isaiah 55 passage cold, because it was the Old Testament lectionary passage. And something in it led me to the passage from John 4:5-42.

Isaiah 55:1 “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

John 4:10 “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

But the Samaritan woman doesn’t get it. She’s still thinking about actual water. The stuff that comes up out of the well they’re sitting near.

Isaiah 55:2 “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

The Samaritan woman is looking in the wrong direction, is sitting in front of Jesus, Lord, Messiah himself, and is talking about literal, wet water. Looking for something so simple as a thirst quencher, totally missing the point of the one who’s sitting in front of her. Jesus says to her, “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

In Jesus, we find true satisfaction.

From Isaiah 55:2-3 “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.”

Jesus himself is offering this Samaritan woman what was promised in Isaiah so long ago:

Isaiah 55:3-5 “I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See I made [the promised one] a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.”

In Christ, the covenant is opened up to the nations. Here in John we see that ever so boldly. He is offering the Samaritan woman—the Samaritan woman, the worst—the living water, the eternal life, genuine satisfaction. And he brings all this to her. Right to her. When she doesn’t even know she’s looking for it. Jesus meets her where she is and provides her need she didn’t even realize she had.

Jesus meets her where she is, but he doesn’t leave her there. He calls her on her polygamous ways. He doesn’t chastise her, but neither does he let it go unnoticed. He lifts it to her attention, she owns it: “Yes, I have no husband,” Jesus says, yes, this is true.

And the time is coming when you will worship me. When worship is done in spirit and in truth. The truth, the confrontation with who we truly are, is a necessary step in our worship. We can’t worship God while we’re hiding under some sort of mask of holiness. We must expose ourselves as the raw sinners we are.

Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

Maybe we wonder why Jesus doesn’t call her out, why he doesn’t yell at her, demand more repentance from her. She’s a pretty blatant sinner. And she does, very matter of factly, admit to her wrongdoing. She does not apologize, she does not show remorse. There is no sign of repentance here. But Jesus does not demand it, does not command it. Rather he goes right on to telling her about how she will come to understand the worship of the Father. Why is that? Why doesn’t he demand her repentance. Isn’t that what we always want? We want to see not simply admitting wrongdoing, from someone, often we’re not satisfied till we see some groveling from someone before we offer forgiveness, before we move on to the next step. That’s not what Jesus does here. He tells her of the day that is to come, when

Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Then there’s this almost intermission here in the Samaritan woman’s story. The disciples are wondering if Jesus has eaten, and he goes into some extended metaphor about his spiritual food, that is his doing the will of the Father and completing his work. He describes the the harvest for eternal life that he is already engaged in, whose fulfillment is yet to come.

Isaiah 55:10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth’ it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

God will complete the good work he has begun. His word is not without power. On the contrary, his Word is power. Where it is planted, there it will bear fruit.

John tells us (vv39 ff. ) “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.’”

And the Samaritans came to realize, as Jesus had told the woman, that the place of their worship, whether the Samaritan’s center of worship, or the Jews, would no longer matter. What would matter is the worship of the living Lord, in spirit and in truth. The Lord is the Lord of all: Jew, Gentile, Samaritan, all the earth. And the living water he brings is the source of Life for the restoration of everything.

Isaiah 55:12-13 “For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

May we all shed the baggage that is standing in our way of being completely engulfed by those living waters. Whether it be the stuff that doesn’t bring true satisfaction, or our own sinfulness. May we live into the broadness of God’s mercy that extends to all the ends of the earth. May we trust in his ways that are not are own, that are infinitely better. May we stand out of the way, as God plants the seeds of his Word and brings forth the fruit of faith. May we serve to nurture that life. And may we join all of creation in worshiping God in spirit and in truth: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

God is good

and sometimes I just feel it. With eyes that well with tears for no particular reason.  Just knowing.  Out of nowhere.  He’s there.  In spite of me.  He’s there.

I need to be productive today.  Run some errands with Ruthie, I think.  Visit a friend in town.

But I think we need lunch first.

Still feeling . . . something.  Not sure what . . .

You know what I’ve been thinking about lately?  Remember–if you’re one of my friends who’s been reading here for the long haul–I had that stretch where I could feel God taking me somewhere, pulling me to the next step, not really understanding how or why?  Part of that was this push to start the ordination process up again after years of dormancy.  But that was just this one bit of this pulling forward.  A year ago (February 14, 2009), I described it as a “stirrings zone. . . .  God stirring me up, prompting me, poking me.”  I’m glad I wrote it down here.  Because I’m realizing now, that I’m arriving there, that place he was leading me.  Or at least part of there.  Or partway there.  Or something.

This job I got, leading worship every Sunday.  It opened up in October, a full two years before what I saw as the earliest possible time for me to get a job.  A full year after I started the whole ordination process back up again.  I could have pushed the process faster if I had tried, but I didn’t try because I didn’t see how I could possibly take any sort of call before Ruthie would start school full-time in 2012.  Now I’m kind of kicking myself, because this current job, maybe, just maybe, could have been something different if I had pushed harder to get all my stuff done.  But I trust it will work itself out.

I’ve been talking with some friends (and Bible study companions) lately about how, exactly, a person goes about hearing what God is calling her to do.  And I lack good answers.  I really do.  I don’t know how I felt those stirrings a year ago, how I felt those pushes a year and a half ago.  I really don’t.  I just did.  I wish I could say how.

What I do know, is that God is big enough to make up for my misunderstandings, for my lack of hearing.  I know that I can plow forward on the wrong path, but God is big enough to scoop me up and set me down on the right path.  I trust that.  And that empowers me to follow where my notions lead.  I’ve followed many, many dead ends.  Many.  But still, I keep ending up in these places where I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I’ve ended up precisely where God wanted me to be.  Sometimes the detours have been long, sometimes very, very short.  But always, I get to where God wants me to be.  As a result, I should never be afraid to say, “I was wrong,” and I should always be following each path with a bit of humility, knowing that I may or may not be hearing God correctly.

Sometimes I think we don’t know we’re going in the right direction until we arrive.  I suspect the Israelites during their forty years in the desert can relate to that.  They were wandering wandering wandering, at times knowing they were going precisely God’s directions, at other times, not so much.  But when they arrived:  Yes!  This is where we belong.  This is where God has brought us, where he was bringing us all along.

Today I thank God for the comfort of knowing he’s big enough to cover my mistakes, to redirect my mistaken paths.  I thank God that he’s big enough to send a big fish if necessary, all to get me where he wants me to go.  And I give thanks for the peace that comes in knowing I’ve arrived.  At least for a time.