…His strength is made perfect. How I know this now. And I also know how painful it is to be weak and let His strength be perfect.

I was reminded of this as I was visiting Owlhaven’s site and ran across this plea to pray for Lucas, a fellow blogger’s little boy who was burned last night. Many of you know that our own son was burned about a year and a half ago. My heart goes out to this family and Lucas. It brings back the feeling of my heart breaking in two for my little boy. Please read his story and PRAY, PRAY, PRAY for him.

Also, scroll down and look at the you-tube video the family made of their adoption story. Keep a kleenex ready! They brought their two new children home only a few months ago.

I was thinking about how right now the family’s souls feel as raw as their son’s flesh. I was also thinking how God showed Himself over and over through our ordeal, mostly through the prayers we felt that were coming literally from around the world. Now, as I told my son of little Lucas, his earnest face lit up when I asked him to pray for him. Can you imagine? He actually felt joy that he could pray for another little boy in need. What a blessing. I think of how many people come away from a painful tragedy bitter. I know our son’s injuries could have been worse, but I believe his belief in God’s goodness would still have been the same.

Now our son is healed and stronger in his faith than he was before he was burned. Please pray the same for Lucas.

I hope you read this in it’s entirety. It is a beautiful thing to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”

This comes from St. John Chrysostom’s catechumenate (new believer) instruction. St. John Chrysostom was born in 347 A.D. Thanks to the Rev. David Chalk for editing this quote unto 21st. century readability. I was inspired to repeat it here after hearing it in his Maundy Thursday sermon.

If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of what took place in Egypt where Christ’s blood is foreshadowed. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” Moses commanded, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.”

Moses said, “Sacrifice a lamb without a blemish and smear the doors with its blood.” What does this mean? Can the blood of a sheep without reason save men endowed with reason? Yes, Moses replies, not because it is blood but because it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. So today if the devil sees, not the blood of the sign smeared on the doorposts, but the true blood smeared on the lips of the faithful, which are the doors of the temple of Christ, with all the more reason will he draw back.

If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ had died, but was still hanging on the cross, the soldier came and pierced his side with the spear and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist. When that soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews slaughtered the victim as a sacrifice and I gathered the fruit of that sacrifice—salvation. I have been saved by it.

“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Dearly beloved, do not pass over this mystery without reflection; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: “by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit,” i.e., by baptism and by the holy Eucharist. Now the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ formed the Church, as he had formed Eve from the side of Adam.

Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.

Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself? Have you seen with what kind of food he feeds us? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and fed. As a woman forms and feeds her child with her own blood and milk, so too does Christ continuously feed those whom he has begotten with his own blood— so too does Christ continuously feed those to whom he himself has given life.

I have been haunted by a theme that runs through the Chronicle of Narnia series: that in the end we get what we want. Over and over through the series the characters are confronted with the end result of what they desire.

The self-centered and gutless uncle in The Magician’s Nephew got what he wanted…himself. He was so focused on satisfying his own desires and evil curiosities that by the end of the book, all he could see and understand was himself. The words of the talking animals were incomprehensible. He was cut off from their fellowship, all the while convinced the world was going insane but certainly not himself.

The witch hungered after the eternal youth and power found in the beautiful apples of Aslan’s garden, and succeeded in stealing and tasting the succulent fruit, only to discover the horror of living with the bitterness and hate of her act ever after.

In The Last Battle, the dwarfs tire of being pulled between the battle of good and evil and finally decide to retreat into themselves. They chant “The dwarfs are for the dwarfs” repeatedly until that is all they see…themselves. Like the uncle, they can no longer see or hear anything else around them. Conversely, the characters desiring Truth and Beauty, found in Aslan, are rewarded with the joy of being in his presence forever.

This thought has caused me much introspection. What do I want? I have found myself praying to Jesus to please not give me what I want. Or at least please change my desires. I fear I desire Him too little. I fear that I may end up getting what I want. I can easily turn this fear into a horror movie…I am standing in heaven, there are millions of enraptured worshipers around me and someone comes and places a big mirror in front of me. It is too heavy for me to move and I am sentenced to look at my own reflection instead of gazing upon the beauty of the Lord. Who could stand it?

My source of great comfort is that Jesus knows our nature. He knows that I am not wise or faithful enough to know what I need. I am grateful that Jesus taught us to pray “Thy will be done.” He wouldn’t have left us with that prayer if we were not in need of fine tuning our desires.

I think that I am getting to a new stage where I am starting to sense the dis-harmony between what I want and what the Lord wills. It is sort of like striking two dischordant notes. Let me back up a little and explain. I usually operate on two levels. On one level I am a jumble of mixed up desires…with the prevailing desire to please myself. On another level, I know that the Lord is good and that His will is good, so I earnestly pray for His will. It was easy to leave it at that, being satisfied that in the end, His will would triumph my puny little desires. This isn’t working anymore. It’s becoming increasingly uncomfortable in my soul. I can sense how against His will my desires and actions so often are. I am just realizing as I write this that this should be a praise! He has heard my prayers to not give me what I want and ignorance of my own sinful desires must have been top on my list.

“Fear not,” Jesus had to repeat over and over. I will rest not in my version of a horror film, but in the words found in my favorite Psalm, the 27th:

One thing I have desired of the LORD,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD,
And to inquire in His temple.

For those of you who know my second daughter, our 5 y/o thirdborn, you’ll know that she is the “quiet” one of the family. She is mostly content to listen and observe. Like most people who share that trait, when she does choose to talk, it is usually a zinger. Something that makes you think. Or at least it should.

She very casually said to me yesterday, “Mama, you’re good, but you’re violent.” That was it, no further explanation. I paused a moment, and said to her, “Yes, that’s very possibly true.” What made the comment more intriguing was that at that moment, I was sitting on my bed reading a book and she was cozied up in a chair, also subdued.

How much truth was packed in that statement! That very day I had taken part of the Palm Sunday liturgy where Luke’s Passion story is read aloud with assigned parts and the congregation shouts out “Crucify! Crucify!” Oh, yes, my child, I am indeed very violent.

Over the past few weeks of Lent, I have spent some time thinking about my very sins that have caused great violence upon an innocent. I am only beginning to scratch the surface of my very violent nature against my very Holy God. What seemed so timely about her statement was that I have spent much of my Christian life “tidying” up my sins, making them what I thought was more palatable to God. I had confused what it meant to be saved and what Paul meant when he said that we are still being saved. I still have a war going on in my body. I am now trying to name my sins in truth, not what I am more comfortable with.

A few weeks earlier I might have been a little jarred by her words. “What is she saying? Does she even know what the word violent really means?” I would have tried to talk her out of what she said. But yesterday, it just seemed to fit into my thoughts perfectly. While my 5 year old probably had spanking in mind, I was delving a little deeper. Every time I rebel, deny my Lord, ignore His urgings, am cross with my family, argue my point too vociferously, pass by the hungry, or even bludgeon my spouse with silence, I am raging against the demands God makes on my life. I am furious with Him for intruding into my life. To make matters worse, I am furious with Him when He doesn’t appear to be intruding enough in my life. It doesn’t matter how great or small my sin is, the end result is violence.

Thankfully, there is also within my soul His banner, shouting gloriously “Good, Good, Lord of All, you are Good!” His life, His light in me is good. I can taste it, I can feel it, I would die without it. He is winning me over completely to goodness, but the battle is long and the battle is bloody. One day, I will be good, wholly, but for now, alas, my daughter was right.

The last few days I have been pondering the term “dangerously low resources,” the crisis message that recently appeared on my computer screen. Too bad that we don’t all get a message that pops up on our foreheads when we are dangerously low on our own resources.

For example, when I have skipped too many days in prayer and Bible reading, and I am crabby with everybody, disrespectful to my husband, and generally a disorganized mess, wouldn’t it be great if the message “dangerously low resources” popped up before my eyes?

Or, if my husband and I have been busy with the children and their activities, stingy with babysitting money, have had too many nighttime critter companions, and suddenly find ourselves out of sorts with each other, wouldn’t the dangerously low resources message be a sweet kick in the pants?

There have been times when I have been out shopping, say, at a specialty foods store like Whole Foods or even at the disorienting and numbing Wal-Mart, when the DLR message would have saved me some pain later.

Inventory your life today and see where your resources are dangerously low. Perhaps you haven’t had a bubble bath in a while, or a novel you have been wanting to read is still on the shelf. Maybe it’s been since your last baby was born that you have spent real time on your face before the Lord. Maybe you’ve added a bit to your credit card rolls, thinking a little here and a little there won’t hurt you. In any case, we are so often too busy to see where our resources are lacking and almost kill ourselves trying to make things happen without the fuel required.

Jesus would recognize the daily depletion of his resources, and would often arise early and go away from others to be alone with the Father. If even He needed to re-fill his resources, just think how much you and I need to do this. And just think what can happen in our lives if we do.

More often than not, as the sun begins to peer over the horizon to gently wake us up, my little critters begin to appear in the bedroom one by one. They fill in the empty spots on the bed and one very lucky one will get to fill in the warm and cozy spot left by DH after he gets up for work.  Such was the case this morning…all but one were snoozing away next to me on the bed while I was drinking my coffee and reading my Bible. Suddenly, my 5 y/o comes streaming into the room with a pack of notecards and armed with her prized new crayons.

“Come on, everybody! We can’t forget to make Daddy birthday cards!”

Suddenly, all were up and industrious within seconds – rare for the morning – happily sharing crayons, helping the baby make her card, and generally thrilled with the prospect of making their daddy happy. All of this was still occurring on my bed.

When I was in college, I used to think how fun it would be to have a whole litter of puppies on my bed, rolling and frolicking with each other. As I sipped my coffee and watched them, I smiled as I remembered the thought. As wonderful as that would be, this was so much better. So much better.

I had one of those moments Sunday that was a pure and utter gift from heaven. And it came when I least expected it and most needed it.

You see, I was wiped out. I was bent in a left-leaning “C” from having 24 lbs. constantly clinging to my side all week, groggy from lack of sleep, irritated by my too-weak new glasses, and a little depressed over how behind I had gotten this last week.

It seemed like a beautiful respite at the communion rail, but mostly because of the chance to be on my knees. My stare was fixated on the purple altar cloth with little woven lambs and latin abbreviations when I numbly took the bread. But when the wine was tipped to me, the red color caught my eyes like a sparkling jewel, and it was a good thing I was on my knees already.

His blood. For me.

Really, it seems at once wholly familiar and utterly out-of-this world that the King of the universe, eternally begotten from the Father, should have literally suffered and given up his entire body for one like me that was more interested on this Sunday morning in cataloguing my minor complaints than worshipping Him (uh, that was a long sentence). That through His mercy, he still reached down to tap me gently on the shoulder and then, like a thunderbolt, show Me His love for me expressed in the cup.

Oh, how I love Him.

…your mom makes you a gluten-free pumpkin pie and a gluten-free pecan pie for Thanksgiving. This was in addition to a regular pumpkin, pecan, and apple pie for everyone else. Thanks Mom. I love you, too.

I have invited some family members from out of town to come and share Thanksgiving with us.  One of the side benefits of getting ready for guests is that I am forced to do some deep cleaning and organizing.

By now, surely you have realized that this is something I struggle with, but I am beginning to wonder if God is using my disorganization to keep me humble.   How fast pride can creep in my life!!  No sooner than I get my “office” a new filing cabinet, my drawers tidy with everything I need within reach, I start thinking how great I am and feeling smug about my fabulous room.  Then, after I finally cleaned and sorted the tubs of junk in my laundry and bedroom, I really started going.  Vainglory trumped my secret shame.

I knew it was getting out of hand when some friends stopped by unexpectedly yesterday.  Usually, I live in terror of the unexpected guest (no, really, do stop by for a visit, just don’t look at the floor very closely), and my heart really starts to pound when they innocently wind their way into my bedroom.  But I was thinking of almost pushing my friends into my bedroom.  “Oh wow,” I could hear them say, “What a nice bedroom, how clean it is.”  What could I be thinking?  In that very same bedroom just two days ago, I gathered an entire box of mismatched socks that I had gathered from the four corners of the house.  The box kept growing when finally I decided I needed to count the socks.

I stopped at 203.  Yep, I am not kidding.  That’s an average of over 30 socks per person.  And that is not even counting what is in the drawers.

I wonder how many times over the past year I had bought a new package of socks because I heard, “Mom!  I don’t have any socks!”

I have been praying for years to be more organized.  I think that now I need to be praying for humility first.

Now, my Thanksgiving Menu.  I like to keep it traditional and simple:

Roast Turkey, Cornbread Dressing (GF, of course), Cranberry Sauce, Gravy, Sweet Potatoes, New Potatoes, Green Bean Casserole (a must for DH), Rolls, and a Green Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette, Pecans and Dried Cranberries.  This year I am adding a Walnut Loaf for the vegetarians.

Desserts:  Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie, Whipped Cream and Gingerbread, Caramel Apples.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Please ignore the bullets. For some crazy reason the template won’t allow for “poetic” spaces and pararaphs.)

• We walked through the double oak doors
• streaming in like moths
• to a candle at twilight.

• Some tired
• some hopeful
• some scared
• some joyful
• all drawn by the same One.

• There’s Joyce, eyes like owls,
• wondering and waiting
• and Denise, singing and
• shouting for joy, like Miriam at the feast…
• and Mike, finding an unexpected friend
• to make him feel at home.

• Like children gathered around a favorite uncle
• we listened to stories,
• living testimonies,
• and we laughed and we cried
• and we gave thanks
• and our color returned.

• Some with no pulses were carried in,
• but found new life.
• Some had lost courage
• but were fitted with armor
• Some scratched their heads
• but still they stayed…

• He stitched us together
• like mixed fibers in a sampler,
• some rough, some silky, some bright,
• others muted, a few brittle,
• and many strong.
• Together we proclaimed His message.

• His banner raised over us
• as we passed again
• through the old, oak doors and
• followed our crooked paths to home.
• But we’ll remember.

• When twilight returns,
• and night begins to squeeze out the day
• we’ll remember and
• we’ll meet again at the Light.