Those Chariot Wheels of Fear

God didn't use 10 plagues to get me to start my new job. As I mentioned in my last blog, God has always made the final call about where I should work, and he's done so with drama...the failed polygraph, the 30 minutes-too-late phone call, etc.  This time, he used the giant fiberglass painted heart, my love of French toast, my friend Barb, the heart surgeon's assistant Christine, and my mom to make his point. I have no doubt--NOT ONE--that God wants me in this new position. 

They called me the day after I posted my last blog to offer me the job. I'm glad God reminded me to give thanks for his guidance in the past, before I got my new answer. 

Sometime I hope to tell you the whole French toast and heart surgeon and mom story, but that's not what's up today.  What's up today is that I'm standing on the edge of the Red Sea, and the Egyptian army is chasing me. I have three more nights left of my old job, and despite the excitement of the journey...despite that I know it's right and that it's a dream job come true and that I love to learn... I keep hearing the chariot wheels of fear.

I used to think I was brave. I took the train alone from Brooklyn to Manhattan without a fear.  I planned our trip to England.  I interviewed random people in tornado-ridden towns I had never visited before.  But I've come to realize that fears of other kinds have been my taskmaster for many years. 

I fear conflict.  I'd rather smooth everything over. 
I fear noise and chaos.  I'd rather be reading a book wrapped in a fuzzy blanket. Drinking tea.
I fear the unknown.  I'd rather stick with the old familiar paths.
I fear disappointing people. I'd rather not attempt than fail. 
I fear conversations.  I'd rather be blogging, where there's plenty of time to think things over.
I fear switching from night shift to day shift, because I always get feel sub-par for a week or two.
I fear day shift. I like the calm and peace of the night.
I fear introductions.  I have a dreadful time remembering people's names.

My new job involves everyone of those things.  

I wonder how Moses kept from panicking when he heard the wheels.

Moses said to the people: 

"The Egyptians [those fears!] whom you see today, 

you shall never see again. 

The Lord will fight for you, 

and you have only to be silent." 

How did Moses know?

A few days ago, I asked Christine, one of the people I will be working with: "Can you give me some calming words [about starting the new job]?" 

She looked thoughtful for a moment.

"No," she said. "You just have to start."

Exodus 14, God told Moses the same thing. "Why do you cry to me? Tell the people to go forward."

God had a great point.  The people had just seen all the wonderful miracles, and they were scared again.  I would never be like that.  Haha. 

Oh, God, help me to just keep walking down the seashore. I will think of the French toast. I will give thanks for the other miracles that brought me to this moment. I will remember the other times I faced conflict, and noise, and chaos (co-worker screaming in linen closet? co-worker crying about other co-worker? mentally ill patients?) and by the power you gave me, I faced those fears.  I will praise you out loud if need be to block out the sound of the wheels. God, I suspect you want to forever free me from those old fears that enslaved me and kept me from complete efficiency.

Perhaps this is the last time I will hear those wheels.

Katrina, how about a little reminder (God asked me) since you have such a hard time remembering to give thanks, even after I blanketed your life with blessings? Why don't we make your last night of work be Thanksgiving night?

I love God. He's awesome. He always thinks of the most ironic and interesting things. (Who but God would think of throwing French toast into a career decision?) So I'll be giving thanks this week, all the way up to Thanksgiving night, when I walk off of the shore, and step into the Red Sea.

Mental Nicotine

Repainted many times. Not finished yet.

One night I muscled my 10-lb medical textbook out of my book case and turned to the heart section.  I read that if a smoker quits smoking, they can reverse the damage of 10 years of smoking in 1 year. 

Most people think that smoking effects your lungs, and it does, but it is also devastating to the heart.
I always knew that it would be good for smokers to quit smoking, but would it really help?  After all those years of damage, what's the use of stopping now? 

Like a smoker, many people have wasted hours, days, and years on mental cigarettes of fear, covetousness, pride, or anger. I think I tended to fear sometimes that following God would be boring and drab.  Certainly if God had given me what I deserved, he would have abandoned me long ago.  But somehow whenever I drop my cigarette of fear (or pride....or anger), there's God, ready to start the restoring process.  Sometimes I can almost physically feel his restoration pouring through my soul.

 If 40 years of smoking damage can be reversed in just 4 years, just because of the healing properties of the human heart, then I'm sure God's ability to restore our damaged immortal hearts must be even greater.

All we have to do is stop smoking.

The H-Word

"I had three sons," she said. 

I'm nosier than I used to be, because life is too short to not hear wisdom from wise people, especially old wise people.

It was the word had that made me pry. Had: the three-letter summary of enormous and chilling stories. The word had is used for times and people that are gone but cannot be forgotten.  It is used for important things.  If you have six eggs and you drop one, it's probably not important to you that you had six.  You only care that you now have five.  That one egg wasn't special to you.

Not so with enormous and chilling stories. The H-word is important in those. She could have said, "I have two sons," but no: she had three.

She pulled the white blanket around her thin body, over the IV and the small heart monitor box that she said was heavy.  Behind her the IV pump hummed out a rhythm. In front of her she saw memories.  She looked past me, where I had taken a seat on the window ledge for story time. She looked down the six floors to the river, and past Elkhart, all the way to the West Coast. 

He was an ambitious water and power man in California. He worked overtime and had become a supervisor. He was hoping to retire early. 

He was 54 when he walked into a building to inspect a newly installed "thing". She couldn’t remember what it was called, but the installation was faulty.  It exploded.  Her son had just enough time to throw his arm across his face before one side of his body burned to a crisp. 

He didn't die for three weeks. In fact when the doctor's discussed skin grafting, he suggested they make some changes to his nose while they were at it.  Then his wounds became infected. 

"That must have been a hard time for you," I said. 

"Well, even now…." she paused. She was crying.  "It's still hard." 

And I, the statue on the window ledge, was crying too.  I always stare in stunned silence at these noble strangers who share the most difficult moments of their lives in five minutes. 

I've learned two things from these wise people.  They always pick out the good things to focus on. And they don't try to say tacky things about why bad things happen. They don't have pat answers.

"Well, it's the way it happened," she said.  "And I still have two sons."

Help! How do you paint fabric folds?

Quiet Bullet Scars

Progress continues (somewhat feverishly) on the giant heart. 

My patient remembered that he woke up in Japan twice. Both time the bullets had been removed. He supposed by surgery, but he didn't know where or by whom. 

I had been the patient-- I'll call Marine-- if he had any surgeries in the past. His history was drab--the normal bouquet of joint replacements and ectomies of unnecessary parts and a few heart explorations or repairs.

Then Marine said, "I had two bullets taken out of me too." He smiled when my eyes jumped off the computer screen and over to him. He shrugged, like removing bullets was as common as taking off his socks.

He received one in Vietnam and one in Korea.

So I guess everyone with bullet scars talks about them like this, I decided. Marine was the second nonchalant bullet-scarred person I had met on the heart floor. The other was not a patient. He was sitting at the foot of his mother's bed at midnight, just being there for her.  I logged onto my computer and began to chart his mother's condition and information. 

"Do you wear oxygen at home usually?" I asked her. 

"No," Son said.  Mom was a bit hard of hearing.  "I'm the one who should be wearing oxygen," he chuckled.  "Doc told me to wear it 24 hours a day."

"Oh, why's that?" I asked, hitting tab on my keyboard to move through the fields on my screen.

"Lung disease." 

Painting names of local towns.

Smoker, I thought, hitting tab again.  I backed out of the conversation, not wanting to make him confess his smoking problem.

"They took out a piece of my lung," he went on.

"Oh…..cancer?" I asked, striking tab again.  I didn't have time to offer sympathy to a non-patient.

"No, a bullet."

I quit hitting the tab key and turned to face him. 

"Was….the bullet...intentional?" I stammered stupidly.

"Oh yes.  All four of them."

It was over 30 years ago in a 7-11 close to the Mexican border. Son was the lone third shift clerk.  Young people did not carry cell phones back then.  

In this region of the Southwest, the style among gangs was to work their way through town, holding up one gas station after the other.  Even small gains added up by the end of the night. 

The gangster burst in, demanding money from the safe.  He marched Son to the safe at gunpoint.  Son did not know the combination.  He fumbled with the lock. He could feel the barrel nosing his neck.  With a burst of inspiration, he leaped to his feet, twisting away from the gun, which of course went off. Twice. In the scuffle, the gun clattered to the floor, and Son leaped across the room behind the thick walls of the walk-in cooler.  Gangster ran out the door.

The blood was trickling. Son opened the cooler door.  Gangster, angry at the turn of events, ran back in.  Son retreated through the door, but he was weak and slow. 

"Elkhart" is the focal point of town names to symbolize the hospital.

He woke up on the floor outside the cooler door, with four bullet wounds: one in his knee, one through his arm, one in his upper back and one in his lower back. 

In that era, Elkhart county housewives didn't commonly fly cross-country on short notice.  But Son's mother leaped on the nearest jet and came to sit at the end of his hospital bed. The doctor told Son that he was lucky the bullet was in his right upper chest.  There is no heart in the right upper chest, only a lung, which is somewhat more disposable than a heart.

The gunman was never found.  

Lesson #2: If you have bullet scars, refer to them in an off-hand manner.  :)

I wonder who else in my life is hiding bullet wounds... 

Fiberglass and Flesh: The Story of Hearts

Preface:  New job at the hospital on the heart floor. New project painting a large heart for a hospital fundraiser. Learning lessons from both. My own heart colored by my patients on the heart floor as I color the heart statue.

LESSON ONE: any situation can be made fun.
 
Being in the hospital with heart problems is no one's idea of fun. No one belongs there. 

There are many different kinds of patients on the heart floor. The ones who belong the least are those who were out playing golf, attending a class, washing dishes, or just getting out of bed, when this thing called "chest pain" hit. 

"Chest pain" is a fuzzy term.  If someone's chest hurts, it doesn't mean they are having a heart attack. They might not even be having a heart problem.  It could be that they pulled a muscle or ate something too spicy.

But here's the problem. It could be a heart attack. How do you know?

By the time a patient arrives on our floor, they've been sitting and waiting in the emergency, hoping they can go home. Instead of going home they get told they'll be spending the night in the hospital on the sixth floor and they will have further testing in the morning.  By the time I (the "night nurse") arrive on the floor, it's 11 o'clock at night and family members have gone home to bed. The patients, who were living their normal lives 12 hours before, are alone on the 6th floor of the hospital.  

Maybe they have heart problems.  Maybe they don't. They won't know until morning. 

They are wearing a ridiculous gown.  They have six foamy stickers stuck to their chest, wired to a little monitor box that sits in a special pocket in the front of their breezy gown.  They're told to call the nurse before they get out of bed. They're told to pee in a container and let the nurse flush it.  

All of this is bad enough in a private room.  But if the heart floor is busy, which is almost always, the patient may have a roommate.  There is potential for loud snoring, constant TV shows, or bright lights across the curtain.  Some people refuse to have a roommate and create a scene in the hall until someone finds them a private room.

 ***************************************************
 The 5-foot tall heart made of fiberglass and steel was delivered by two tall well-cologned men in dress pants who probably aren't delivery men in their normal lives.

After nearly trapping their box truck in the alley they returned to the door I didn't want them to use and unloaded the cardboard-swaddled heart. It was raining. I stood in the rain out of loyalty to the cause although I was basically useless from a practical standpoint.   

They told me the hearts were made in Chicago with a special mold. The special mold had been developed by San Francisco General hospital for their heart fundraiser.  I guess they didn't mind sharing the mold and the idea with a small mid-western town. 

**************************************************
One night one of our patients was an elderly gentleman I'll call Jack.

I saw him sitting there at the foot of his roommate's bed when I first arrived. He wasn't my patient. Jack looked like a family member, but I knew he wasn't because he was wearing a gown under his windbreaker, and carting around an IV pole.  I heard that he had developed chest pain during his morning tennis workout.

It was almost midnight but they were just shooting the breeze. Twenty-four hours before, neither one was expecting to be there. Both were scheduled for frightening procedures in the morning. Both were peeing in plastic containers and wearing ridiculous gowns and carrying heart monitors in their gown pockets. They talked for a long time, about their hearts and what they were facing in the morning, about their jobs, about their lives.

I saw Jack out making laps a few hours later, striding up the hall beside his IV pole.

"So you're the tennis player?"

"I've been called a lot of things, but never a tennis player," he chuckled. "I play tennis.  There's a subtle difference."  

I laughed, and he went back to his room.  His roommate was awake. The next thing I saw, there they were again, chatting like it was guys' night out fishing, waiting for a bite. 

I'll probably never see Jack again.  But I learned from Jack that it's possible to go from player on the tennis court to patient on the heart floor-- in a double room-- without losing your chuckle. 

Lesson One: Anything can be made fun. 

******************************************************
After the heart was unwrapped and toweled dry and the box truck and cologne scent had eased away, I corralled my aunt for a trip to Lowe's. Lowe's is a place I definitely don't belong.  (How do I know if I want satin or flat?)  So it's best for me to not go there alone. With the help of my aunt, I managed to buy a gallon of paint, a foam roller, and a 9 foot by 12 foot plastic drop cloth. 

Fiberglass and Flesh..... the story of hearts, to be continued, with updates on the progress of the fiberglass heart and more wisdom from the heart floor.

Why David Should Not Have Fought Goliath

I've changed my mind about the soldiers who were too scared to fight Goliath.  I used to think they were cowards.  I used to think that David charged into the band of losers with his strength and intelligence and decided he could handle Goliath. No problem.

Like I said, I've changed my mind. I now think the soldiers who held back made the rational choice... the choice recommended by the experts. Their choice was based on good logic, much experience. They knew it would be suicide to sword fight with a man who carried more weight in armor than they weighed. They knew they would be food for the birds, just one more reason for the enemy to mock God's people. 

I also changed my mind about David.  I now think that he was the irrational one. He was the one who was refusing to look at the facts.  By the wisdom of men much older and wiser than he, his decision to fight the giant was utter folly.  I'm surprised that Saul even let him go, except there wasn't much to lose.  

Walking across the valley to fight Goliath was the craziest thing David ever did in his life. Yes, he had killed a lion and a bear. But lions and bears don't have armor bearers to hold up shields when stones come flying and thousands of other lions and bears behind them to back them up and dissect their enemies piece by piece.  Lions and bears don't laugh at you as they're cutting off your head.

I've been thinking about David's irrational choice all week.  David based his decision entirely on his memories of God's past triumph in his life.  He was so confident of God's power that he found it an outrage that everyone else was being rational and looking at the facts.  Yes.  They were being rational, logical and sensible.  

David was not being logical. He was crazy enough to ask why no one was fighting a man three times their own size: not logical. His thoughts were based on an unseen reality: not logical.   He wasn't even sizing up the giant: not logical. His only logical support was two stories from the past that he could not prove.

I wish I could ask David what was going through his mind as he walked across the valley, as he chatted with Goliath. I bet it wasn't much. Thinking would have been a huge downfall.  Maybe he was just thanking God for saving him from the bear.  Maybe he was composing poetry? Yea, though I walk through the valley of the SHADOW OF DEATH, I will fear no evil.

I don't think this irrational kind of faith can be faked outside of a close relationship with God.  I only see that when we feel confident that God's name will be glorified through us, we will pursue whatever sacrifice he asks of us, without considering logic.  We will fix our eyes on what there is to be done, and....
... not think about the size of the giant
...not think about the whistling sword that's taller than us
...not think of the many heads Goliath has cut off
...not think about the many older, wiser people who have not been able to conquer him
...not think about the conventional wisdom that this is just the way it is, and we shouldn't try to be someone we're not
...not think about the masses of people watching us, sure that we will fail and run the other way
...not think about the statistics surrounding people who try to fight with someone three times their size.  

I'm tired of the logic of pale Christian views that logically explain why we don't have to fight our Goliath.  Well, it's natural for you to feel that way....it's not wrong to be....angry....afraid....etc, etc.  Of course, what they are saying is true, just like it was NATURAL for the armies of Israel to flee from Goliath.  Maybe they didn't do anything WRONG.  But that's not the kind of life I want to live. 
Because of course we all have our own Goliath, perched in our own valley. And there are hosts of people watching us.

You know the end of the David and Goliath story. 

When we stop using our own logic, God finds room to work in us. 

Laundromats and Abraham's faith

I moved recently into a one bedroom apartment without a washer and dryer.  I didn't dislike the apartment and I knew that God wanted me there, but I was a little grouchy about the laundry situation. I decided to listen to God, move in, and endure the laundry problem. 

I don't know if the patriarch Abraham every had problems with laundry.  Probably he did.  Where do you do laundry if you're a nomad, wandering through places you've never been to? Or maybe you just don't do laundry, which would be even more of a stretch of faith.

But the part about Abraham's life that puzzled me most was Genesis 22, where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son.  If ever there's a chapter of the Bible that could be longer, it's this one.

Verse 3 starts with, "So Abraham...."  Now, in today's world, I would expect that verse and the rest of chapter 22 to go something like this:

"So Abraham sat on the front porch all night long in agony, drinking (coffee?).  He begged God to change his mind and became extremely high maintenance.  He bargained with God and told God that this would ruin his relationship with his wife...." 

And on and on for another 100 verses. 

Instead the verse says,

"So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, 

and took two of his young men with him, 

and his son Isaac. 

And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose 

and went to the place of which God had told him."

It's unbelievably brief. It gives no details about Abraham tossing and turning in bed all night long trying to evade God's instructions.  Where's the rest of the chapter?

As I thought about Abraham, I listened to God and moved to the new apartment.  For the first time I began to wonder.   Perhaps Abraham really DIDN'T toss or turn or drink excessive coffee.  Perhaps he knew God.  So well.  That he knew it would be okay.

This thought occurred to me before I was forced to do my laundry at midnight on one of my nights off.  I piled my clothes in my rusting Ford Focus with 216,000 miles and headed off into the night.  I went to Nappanee, where there is a beautiful Nappanee-style laundromat that is not open at midnight. So I drove to Goshen where there is a practical Goshen-style laundromat that is open at midnight.

I turned a $20 bill into 80 quarters.  I measured out detergent and realized that I had forgotten how nice soap smells.  I loaded the triple loader washers and locked the handles for the 34 minute cycle. I watched the suds roll and the clothes spin. I connected my phone to the free Wi-Fi.

I bet it's fun owning a laundromat, I thought to myself.  (I think God may have laughed at me at that ironic moment.)

All I can say is I began to look forward to doing my laundry, which I can assure you I never recall happening before. It even occurred to me that someday I might not work night shift anymore, and then I probably couldn't go to the laundromat in the cool and dark. Yes, it's possible that the other midnight patrons are using meth, but I feel safe in the arms of the security cameras, and even safer in the arms of God.  I realize that when God asks us to do things, we don't have to grit our teeth and plan on being miserable. Not even about the things we think will be the worst.

I believe that Abraham had learned to trust God early on when he learned that God cared about even small details like laundry.  He had learned to trust God without having a GPS.  He actually got to the point where he believed that he and Sarah would have a son.  The idea of childbirth for them was illogical, radical, foolish, and preposterous, EXCEPT that God had said it.  And Abraham, according to Romans 4, "Did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body. No distrust made him waver...in hope he believed against hope."

God asked Abraham to do crazy things and he did without question, without lying awake all night.  It blows my mind.  Except that I'm beginning to see, perched on a practical wooden laundromat stool, that God is not someone to be doubted.

P.S. :  I wanted to mention several other things shocking things God has done but I ran out of space! Maybe next time.  I never wanted to live a boring life and praise the Lord, I'm not!

Undertakers, Judges, and Defense Attorneys, Part Two

--Previously:  after a night at the nursing home involving a 100-year-old lady who thinks I'm killing her and the undertaker coming for another lady, I race to the Goshen courthouse for the 8am hearing of a friend. I arrive at the metal detectors 30 minutes late. I empty my pockets when I beep. I find that I've thrown a bandage scissors up on the counter. 


The deputy and I stare at the bandage scissors, both in disbelief.  We're trying to figure out who's going to talk first.

I break the silence.

"Ummmmm....I suppose that's not even supposed to be in here?" I say weakly.

"No it's not," the deputy replies, suddenly recovering the lead.  "You're choices are:" (she delivers it like a judge delivering a sentence) "take it out to your car, or I can dispose of it."  She says dispose as if she were handling the word with gloves. 

I slump against the counter.

"I suppose court is already started?" I ask.  I've probably missed the hearing already. My friend was up there alone with no support. (What kind of idiot takes a scissors into a courthouse?)

The two deputies look at each other. 

"There's no court going," they say.  "Court upstairs starts at 8:30."

Aha! I had the time half an hour wrong! I have 5 minutes to dispose of the offending scissor. I'm already out of breath, but I joyfully grab the scissors.

"Take the other things too," the deputy says, looking disapprovingly at the pin on my nametag, and the rest of my pocket riff-raff.

I beat the race against time, gasping from running twice through the bitter cold. I make it upstairs to the tiled floor leading into the dark courtroom with the massive wooden furniture. (I think they make those courtrooms super-sized so that people feel small.) I blink and look around for a place to sit. There she is, about three rows back. She's not expecting a support person, and a smile floods her face.

 I catch Judge Shoemaker looking at me past the sleek prosecuting attorney from the state.  I don't blame him because I'm glaring at the back of that sleek man, sitting on the edge of my wooden seat while the rest of the audience looks at their watches.

She's the second one called. It's good they didn't start at 8am. 

Judge Shoemaker observes that the debt my friend owes to the state--for being a prisoner!-- has increased from $3,600 to $3,800.

"You're going the wrong direction," Judge Shoemaker says with his crusty monotone.

What!? I want to yell at the judge. Are you going to send her to prison because of a few hundred dollars? I want to leap up and wave my arms and be an idiot (again). 

I catch Judge Shoemaker looking at me past the sleek prosecuting attorney from the state.  I don't blame him because I'm glaring at the back of that sleek man, sitting on the edge of my wooden seat while the rest of the audience looks at their watches.

The fat defense attorney shuffles papers and explains that she has secured a job and begun to pay, but because of a fire at her factory, has temporarily been laid off.

As I'm sitting there as tense as a guitar string, I wonder why the state's prosecuting attorneys are lean and well-dressed and the public defenders are overweight with out-dated beards?

One more month, Judge Shoemaker says. And the balance had better be less than $3,800 or you're going to prison.

I take her back to work release. She has 30 minutes to get back, so we get Dunkin' Donuts. We don't talk much.  They have no tolerance, she says, even if you have a late doctor's appointment or can't find a ride. I don't doubt that she also made violations on her own. 

Back at work release, there's a young man trying to open his truck but it's frozen shut. Finally the key breaks off. See, she says, that's a violation for him now if he can't make it to work. They don't care.

I drop her off. I want to offer this guy a ride to work, but the disapproving frowns of my family and friends stop me. 

I know this guy didn't end up in work release with a broken key by accident. He's probably a rule-breaker. I know my friend didn't end up in work release with a big bill by accident. I know there's a reason she's there.  She's probably a rule-breaker.  There was also a reason I was huffing and puffing when I got into the courtroom. I'm a rule-breaker. I take contraband into the courthouse. But when I break rules, I get sized up as a decent person who just got off night shift, and I get sent to my car, not to prison. 

May I never be disillusioned by helping people, like the public defenders. May I never be arrogant about who I am or what I have, like the prosecuting attorneys.

May I have the role of a public defender and the skill of a prosecuting attorney.

May I know that, at the end of the day, we're all rule-breakers, and we will all face a judge. 
    

Undertakers, Judges, and Defense Attorneys, Part One. Also, what not to take into a courthouse.

The undertaker and the county judge. Two respected men. Two men you hope are coming for someone else. I saw them both today, Mr. Thompson with his metal gurney and maroon body bag, and Judge Shoemaker looking down at us from behind his massive wooden desk. 

As I listen to my favorite little lady's heart last night, I wondered how many times it had beat total.  If her heart has been beating 54 times a minute for a century that's 2,838,240,000 times.

As I turn her over to look at her skin, she grumbles, "Are you trying to kill me?" 

"No," I say.  "I wouldn't try to kill anyone, but certainly not you."  She thinks I'm trying to kill her. She doesn't know I'm her defense attorney, arguing with time, for my favorite clients, making sure that her skin--her best defense  against the prison of infection--is intact. 

Across the hall, time is running out for someone else, and Mr. Thompson will be coming in the morning. But tonight for this little lady, her heart keeps beating. 2,838,240,101....2,838,240,102.... 2,838,240,103....

In the morning, Mr. Thompson rattles in with his metal and maroon, wearing his suit and his smile and his cologne. I like him. He's nice. But I'd rather his role stay in the lives of other people.

I'm arguing with time again this morning as Mr. Thompson signs paperwork, because I have to make it to the courthouse to watch a defense attorney argue in front of Judge Shoemaker for my friend who might get sent to prison. 

I jog down the cement sidewalk in the biting wind, under the courthouse trees, and up the dozen cement steps that always leave me winded.  I burst through the doors, afraid her case has already been heard, throw my keys in the plastic gray bin and step under the metal detector.

It beeps.

Oh, I forgot to take off my nametag and watch. I hurl them into the bin after my keys. I'm still catching my breath from dashing in through the cold and up the dozen steps.

It still beeps.

I pat my pockets and realize I forgot to empty them. I dump a fistful of scrub pocket contents into the gray bin--Let's get on with this--And then I see that I just threw a bandage scissors up on the courthouse counter under the deputy's eye. 

To Be Continued....

The God Who Is Not Who We Expect

Is anyone else reading the first chapters of Genesis right now? Or Matthew?  (This must be the time of year when the most Christians are reading from the same books of the Bible.)

Fresh from the beginnings of Genesis and Matthew, I find myself once again surprised by God.

Of all things....Adam and Eve had expressly disobeyed God and ruined the beautiful world. Now, is there any reason why God should work with them in their disobedience by making them clothes?  It's not like they didn't have the fig leaves.  But for some unknown reason, God goes out of his way to help fix a problem caused by something he had expressly forbidden them to do.  He comes up with a better solution than theirs to a problem they would have never had if they had listened to him. He walks with them through a darkness of their own making that he had specifically asked them to avoid. 

I find this steadfast love shocking, something I would have never expected on my own, or written into the world's plot as feasible.

Over in Matthew 2, there's a story more horrifying. One of the world's most powerful leaders kills all the babies in his country but the one he wanted.  Now think for a minute, about this powerful and ruthless state ruler, this Hitler.  Who has ever heard of a leader killing only babies?  It's the most bizarre story.  Yes, children are sometimes victims of atrocities and war, but always along with adults...by-standers that everyone agrees are innocent. Not here. 

I have no idea why God set the birth of his son on such a bloody and gruesome stage.  I know it shows God's power, to have his Son delivered "from the dead" so to speak, since such a full-scale killing could not have been escaped by human strength.  I guess too, it shows the world's great need for a Prince of Peace.

But it is still something I would not have expected. 

This astonishing creativity is one of my favorite things about God!

Ever just the same, ever a surprise! 

Ever as before, ever just as sure, as the sun will rise!