Reflections: A thank you to my Beautiful Parents, wonderfully and fearfully made.

I temper my serious posts with photos of what I thought cool hair looked like when I was 10-years-old. Wow. I really hope Eden does NOT go through this phase.

 October 9^th, 2021 Journal                                                                                                 6:45 a.m. 

My parents are divorced. They were married a little over 19 years I believe, but they’ve been divorced now more than 20. They are not proud of it, I venture to say, although I suppose I haven’t sat down and ever said, “Hey Mom,” or “Hey Dad,” are you proud of your divorce? I’m sure they would answer, “no.” And given the day and circumstance, I would imagine they ponder many “what ifs” about their own lives. I say that only because I am a mere a 39, (I force myself to say mere. It feels like a century), and I struggle with “what ifs” about most things in my life, so since I AM also a product of these two people, I’m going to take a wild guess that I am like them and they are like me, thus they do ...have what ifs too…albeit in different areas and for different reasons. REGARDLESS- my point is this. Plenty of people could look at me and wonder how in the world I could learn from my own parents the model for a healthy marriage or how to remain in an unhealthy one and PURSUE health. But God. But God, my friend. I said that when I was 21-years-old, and the mother of a good Christian friend of mine, who happened to be a boy, let it slip that she, the mom, hoped her children never married kids from divorced families. Marriage was hard enough. I was devasted. There it went- all my hope for ever being good enough to marry a Christian boy, not that I'd even wanted to MARRY that boy. Just sayin'. Man. That was a tough day.

The honest truth, however, is much more beautiful and joyful than that day.  BECAUSE of GOD. God takes every single thing, and purposes it. Well, that’s what I believe because of Scripture and my own life experience, as well as my parents and other mentors God has given me during these 39 years. Saints; these people are saints. People being MADE saints, and I’ve watched it all, and soaked it in, for better or worse.

I’ve watched their mistakes and their well-intentioned tirades, and I’ve seen the long-term effects of immediate relief as well as winning, and it's not all that amazing all the time. I’ve complained about how awful it was, and I’ve gleaned from it lessons for which I am forever, ETERNALLY, grateful. My parents are so wise, even in their depravity, and they have modeled much for me. And the things they have been unable to model, God has given me other models to demonstrate.

In May, I sat around my sister’s kitchen table, in her large (aka not NYC) kitchen that I adore, and Jesse and I listened to my parents give us their perspective and thoughts on some of the issues we were dealing with in life and marriage and parenting, et al. At the end, Jesse turned to me and said, “I think you have two really wise people here giving you some great advice.” I could not disagree, and my heart overflowed, though at the moment, I couldn’t quite express it the way I am now. But it’s the truth. I don’t mean to say we aren’t all crazy from time-to-time, or…ummm…on a daily basis. (What is it kids say these days? On the reg? Like reg is a word, for regular or something?) ANYWAY-

Final point: Last Sunday, I went to a workshop about spiritual healing at a church in FIDI. (I know, I know, all my Presbyterian and Reformed cessesationists are cringing at the moment, but give a me a minute). I was timid to go because I’m steeped now, for over 20 years myself, in a culture that while pointing me to GRACE and God’s magnificent holiness can also quench the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit, a person in and of itself. (Gender neutral there….just to be extra provocative). This seminar, however, was incredible, and reminded me that Scripture, that GOD, will not be put in a box, or, in the famous words of one of my seminary pastors, put in the DOC! (I recall not understanding what the heck he meant. The only doc I knew of was a DOCK. Huh?? I digress).

The speaker challenged us at one point in regard to how we pray for people and even ourselves. "We see people with missing arms, with missing legs, blind, and without, and we pray for their healing," he said. “Oh God, restore their arm, or their sight. Grant them abundance, and give them blessing,” like God’s some genie that if we rub the right way and say the right words with the right faith at the right time while believing the right thing, he MIGHT respond. That's not Scripture, however. Scripture, the speaker challenged, restores that which is not there....focuses on bringing OUT that which is not there. God creates OUT OF NOTHING. God brings life OUT OF DEATH, from dry bones. 

How would it look to notice NOT that which is missing, but to concentrate upon THAT WHICH IS THERE AND WHICH GOD HAS FOR THEM. Perhaps this sounds a little tricky, or like I’m just mincing words. I’m sure it does. I’m not THAT great of a writer, but it did get me thinking, and it ties into what I experience when I look at my parents and find wisdom and guidance from everything they did that the world or legalistic “church” would say they did wrong. I see them; and instead of ONLY seeing all the ways they lacked parts, I see WHAT they lacked, by God’s GRACE. And they've shown me JUST how important those things are, and they value those things to this day. It's incredible. #humbled.

God is leading me in my own life, uncovering and revealing things which would have quenched and nourished my parents' marriage had they been accessible to them, even the ability for my mother to get a way for a moment or my father to have had some support financially sustaining us. Indeed they lacked community, a gift which I refuse to take for granted though I am realizing I certainly have taken it for granted in the past. 

And so I pray into that. God, help me take that which is ALL READY HERE FOR ME, all that I need for life and godliness, since indeed my struggle is NOT merely against flesh and blood. Amen! (2Peter 1).

So there you have it; grace for today, or what has been my grace for this morning at least, although I didn't get around to posting it until tonight. Lauren Daigle’s Christmas song, Noel, keeps refraining in my head even though we have barely hit Halloween. The lyrics that keep standing out are these, “Noel, Noel! Come and see what God has done. Noel, Noel, the story of amazing Love!”

So true. Noel. God has birthed things incredible, through brokenness… INTO brokenness. God has spoke life and reconciliation into all which has been divorced from God’s presence. Praise God. I know I do.

And thank you Dad and Mom. Thank you being real and persevering, even in pain and the unknowns. You’ve give me such an incredible model for life that when I pair with Scripture, God’s living LOGOS, keeps me alive. You’ve literally taught me everything I know somehow… even down to how to go to the bathroom in the toilet.

All right, how’s that for an ending to a serious declaration of God’s faithfulness. Humble bathroom discussion, albeit the truth. God is not above being humbled, after all. God took on flesh, became a man. Noel. “Come and see what God has done… light of the world, born unto us….Noel.”