Christian Potpourri

I almost wrote about storms last month. Margo, our oldest daughter, and I had just finished attending SKYWARN classes in St. Louis County and learned about different weather phenomena and how to spot serious conditions approaching. St. Louis County utilizes SKYWARN classes to educate people so they can accurately report conditions which then are relayed to warning systems. After two classes you are given a ‘spotter number’. SKYWARN spotters are called the ground troops, a small army of people who are activated when weather goes bad.
Margo and I are fascinated by weather, and we learned a lot in our classes. But I also began to think of weather and how it relates to worry. In a very real way weather and storms represent how worry can consume us. Let’s start with scud clouds. These are clouds that hang down from a cloud base kind of like a missile and can look like a funnel about to hit ground. But they’re not threatening at all. They just look kind of scary. Then you have the little dust devils, water spouts, and various other formations that look hazardous but mainly are not. All of these have a parallel to the storms of life we think we see approaching on the horizon. We worry about them before we’re able to really identify them. What a tremendous waste of time.
Now, funnel clouds are scary as they are tornados in the making, but for the most part they’re not damaging until they hit the ground. If you see a funnel on the horizon it is wise to watch and see if it touches ground. For when a funnel touches ground it officially becomes a tornado and a tornado can do untold damage because it is the most powerful weather force on earth. It’s destructive and deadly. But the odds of your getting hit, or my getting hit are actually pretty low. (According to various data to be found on the Internet.)
So how do we relate all of this into how to watch for life’s storms?

Be prepared. Don’t put off finding spiritual ground until a storm hits. Like a candle in a storm shelter, God’s love and strength can fight off any darkness, but you need to have it in place before it happens.
Be watchful but don’t worry. Like the odds of being hit by a tornado, most of the things we worry about never come to pass. They are dust devils and will dance around only to fall apart.
Remember the ground troops. These are the people who are there, like SKYWARN, to help you recognize lightening so you can get out of the way, people with godly counsel, so you don’t walk into a storm unwittingly, or to pray for you when you’re in the midst of a deadly storm. You should have several spotters like this in your life.
Be a member of the ground troops. Learn what real storms look like. Challenge yourself to discriminate where the devil is stirring up the dust. It’s amazing how the deceiver can distract us with counterfeit storms. Know the difference.

Storms will come. If not for this fact, Margo and I would not have attended SKYWARN classes. But because we know storms will come we wanted to know how to spot the ones that can damage and destroy, to protect ourselves and perhaps one day protect our community.
As Christians how can we do any less?

There is a new ‘in’ crowd of people of whom I have become keenly aware, and for whom I have gained a great respect. The ‘in’ crowd of whom I speak is made up of people who have voyaged through life and have landed in their seventies, eighties and nineties with exceptional finesse and a keen sense of humor. They have landed not without pain, not without grief, and not without some scars. The fact is, they could not have reached where they are without getting pretty tousled up. Even so, I find this crowd to be full of faith, wisdom, hope, and resilience. They are the ‘in’ crowd.
There are certain earmarks of the ‘in’ crowd which distinguish them. Some earmarks can vary and some may be stronger in one person than another. But I believe that most of the successfully older people I know have many of the traits I list below in common, traits that I want to personally develop and foster, traits that will help me become one of the ‘in’ crowd!
Before I begin my list I must beg your indulgence as I use my Mother as the example for the traits below. Know that in my doing so I see many of you in my mind’s eye who well represent these characteristics! If I were to try to list you all I would find myself mired in a list longer than this newsletter and I would inevitably leave someone out! So I will stick with my precious 91 year old Mother who to me, provides the best example I know. As I look over her life, I find myself in deep admiration. When I think about her zest for living, I consider what it is that keeps her life so contagiously joyous.

My Mom remains:
In love: Her love for Christ simply glows. She holds tight to her hope in Him. If I could paint a picture of what my Mother’s love for the Lord looks like, I would say this: She has one hand extended to the world and the other grips Christ.
Inquisitive: Avid reader, news watcher, she never tires of learning more.
Interested: Her world has not shrunk. She loves people and has a genuine, caring interest in their lives.
Involved: She remains involved in as many activities as she can do and she can do a lot! That’s because she doesn’t let limitations intimidate her. She’s…
Inventive: Where she is limited, she finds a way around it!
Intuitive: About her health and her health needs. She’s keenly aware of her own rhythms and when something is wrong, she knows it and takes care of it.
Intentional: No wishy washy stuff here. She is into intentional living, full of purpose and promise, seeing the positive more than the negative, an over-comer.
Invested: She invests herself in people, with resources and with her time; she gives of herself. The awesome thing is, it really is an investment where she reaps the bounty of a multitude of authentic friendships.
Inspired: My Mother sees God’s hand in so many things, in everything. She is inspired by God’s grace and mercy in the small things, and rejoices gladly in the big things as well, and becomes an inspiration in doing so.

Can the things on this list be fostered outside of the Christian life? Of course, some of them can. Are some of the things on my list achingly void in some Christian lives? Absolutely.

But the people I see who are living fabulously joyous lives in their latter years, no matter their present circumstances, are the ones who hold tight to Christ, for it is in Him they have their hope.

Not part of the ‘in’ crowd yet? Not to worry. They’re not exclusive!
And I can’t think of a better crowd to join.

The year was 1977, before marriage and children entered my picture. At the urging of a dear friend, Carolyn, who had moved to Dallas, I moved also. For in 1977, Dallas was the place to be and we wanted to be where the action was. Carolyn’s older sister and some of her friends had been the trail blazers for us, and shortly after we found out that several of our high school classmates would soon be moving into an apartment nearby; we just didn’t know when.
I had found a nice little job working in downtown Dallas, in the advertising department of a department store chain. Traffic to and from was a bear, and daily parking was costly, but the air of freedom and being on my own certainly made it all worth it.

Dallas is a big city. According to Wikpedia, in 2007, Dallas is the 4th largest city in the nation, spread out over 384 square miles. I know it wasn’t that large when I moved there, but I can tell you even then…it was BIG.

One day after work, I was walking to my car in the rental lot when way down the street I saw something white and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was walking toward me and I felt magnetized to it. It was a person dressed in white. What once was a white blur became defined, and I saw something very familiar yet unrecognizable. Closer still the person drew until I saw my friend, Gayle, my high school buddy, drenched in tears walking toward me. We walked straight at each other until I was standing before her, asking her if she was okay…and what was wrong?

Gayle was a physical therapist, and had found a job in Dallas. She was one of the friends I knew was moving, but I just didn’t know when. And there she was, in Dallas, standing before me, crying. She hadn’t known it was me until she had gotten closer… her eyes were brimming with tears, and I certainly hadn’t known it was her, either.

And what had happened to her? She had taken a bus from her new job and had gotten very, very lost. She was walking, trying to figure out what to do and where to go. Gayle is one strong gal and had to be pretty upset to walk around in broad daylight in Dallas, crying like that. And there I was. In the whole expanse of Dallas, she and I had found each other, perfectly timed, right by my parking lot. She got in my car and I drove her to her apartment. All the way there we mused…what were the odds of our finding each other like that?

This Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who came to us in our lost-ness, to where we are, to give us eternal life. And He’ll come to where we are now. There is no street in Dallas, Texas, or any place in the whole wide, huge, world, where He will not meet us.

Are you lost? Like my dear friend, Gayle, you can be found.

Thank you, dear Lord, for Easter Sunday.

I am surrounded by grief. A friend has just lost her husband to cancer. A cousin has lost her mother. Another friend will soon lose her grandmother. Grief.

A former boss’s father has Parkinson’s. A relative is suffering from advanced ALS. An aunt is falling more and more into Alzheimer’s. Grief.

Grief grabs us with great big hooks and swings us around in a cycle of sadness. To be a Christian does not mean there is no grief. The sorrow over an impending loss, and the loss itself, can be all consuming even to those of us who know that this is not the end. Christians know death is the REAL beginning for those who have placed their trust in Christ. But sorrow still has it’s edge, the serrated edge of a knife that cuts so deeply. Someone is gone; there is an absence. And we are forced to continue without them.

Christ knew what it was like to have a dear one pass. He stood and wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Grief. Christ understood it, and understands it now. And He is there with us as we go through it.

For there is a time for grieving, a time for sorrow, and this is that time for some people I know and love.  It is with great empathy and sympathy that I wrote this poem. I dedicate it to all who are feeling the pain of loss.

It’s not an easy poem. It’s a poem about grief.

Grief
By Mary Hughes

Scorched by fire,
Blistered by heat,
I feel grief’s coals
Beneath my feet.

I breathe grief out;
I breathe grief in.
And watch the ashes
In the wind.

Here in the Hughes’ household we have had an absurd moment. And in this moment of the absurd, we see the hand of God.

From a young age, our daughter, Julie, mumbled. We would have moments of high stress when we had to ask her to repeat herself not once, but twice in order to understand what she was saying. With eyeballs rolling she would sigh that ‘how can you not understand’ sigh. No amount of cajoling worked. My husband and I felt like ‘Pete” and “Repeat”.

At the age of 20 our little mumbler went to college. It was in this freshman year she had her first heartbreak in the form of a broken relationship. Feeling hopeless and not able to cope, she moved back home. She found jobs here and there, but nothing that she saw as a future for herself. I must tell you she was pretty despondent and her Dad and I were very concerned. Then one night she went with her Dad on his overnight shift as videographer for a local station in St. Louis and she had a blast. Overnight she found a new sense of purpose, a future. That future came in the form of The Broadcast Center, a school for media and radio. And we enrolled her, not knowing what field she would choose, or where she would excel. We weren’t sure of anything really; we were just happy to see her involved and interested in something. But before long it became clear: she loved what she was doing! The only thing that concerned us was: it was radio. She wanted to be on the radio.

Her interest progressed as did her education. When she came home with a professionally done radio demo we held our breath in the form of a prayer.

When we listened we were floored. We could understand every word!!!! It was a moment of pure…..incredulity! And we thought, “This was worth it just to be able to understand her!”

Then one day Julie called and left a message on our answering machine. Her Dad and I played it and re-played it, trying to understand what she said. We saved the message. We saved it for Julie.

She came over, listened. She shook her head and said, “I have no idea what I’m saying.” Ah, the absurd!

Since that time Julie has been in radio, from Cape Girardeau to a part-time job in St. Louis doing traffic.Amidst the ups and downs of the economy, and the ensuing havoc it wreaked, she has hung in there. She found full time jobs here and there, but could never quite let go of her part-time job in radio. We encouraged her to stay. We just had a crazy feeing she was supposed to be in radio.

Recently we were at a crisis point. There was a full time position available where she was working, but there was a big hitch. Two people with loads of experience in the St. Louis had applied. One had fifteen years of experience. The tension was incredible. Julie would call us, asking for prayer. So we did, and we asked others to pray, too. Julie would call and ask me, “Mom, do you think I’ll get this job?” I honestly had no clue and it was painful for me to tell her that. One thing I did know was if she didn’t get the job it would probably be the end of her radio career. She simply would have to move on, find a full time job somewhere.

After weeks of a gut-wrenching wait, Julie called. I had no problem understanding her.

“Mom……….I GOT THE JOB!”

It was huge! It was momentous! It was validation. It was affirmation of all that had happened before, the awful break-up, the quitting school and moving back home.

“Mom, please tell everyone who prayed for me I said thank you!” Her voice broke.

“And, Mom. You know what? I wish God was right here beside me so I could give Him a hug.”

You can imagine how I felt hearing that. And as a dear friend said when I told her this, “She did give Him a hug. She gave God the credit and the glory!”

She’s right.

It’s been a five year journey. Julie just turned twenty five this December. It’s been rough at times for her and for us. At times we probably lost confidence. But God is good and He knew all the time.

There will be rough patches ahead. The newness and excitement will give way to reality. Work is always going to be hard no matter what you do. You go through valleys and back up to the mountaintop. And back down again.

We thank Him. Oh, we are still in praise mode big time!

We are glorying in the absurd.