A Pounding Process and My Great Down Comforter

Not only do we encounter heaping helpings of poop at times, but another example my friend shared between signing books is how we tenderize meat by pounding it with a hammer.  For example, after breaking up with my boyfriend Saturday night, I asked, “Oh Lord my God, aren’t I tender enough?”

And think about pruning branches, shearing sheep..., threshing wheat, refining silver, or firing clay... So many natural processes from growing fruit to making porcelin require severity to some degree, and a huge measure of patience. We cry, "No Lord! I have a fear of knives and shears and fire!" But the Master knows what He's trying to achieve not only in us but through us for the benefit of others.

“Let’s fix our focus on Jesus, the one who created faith in us and intends to complete it, who focused on heaven and chose to endure even a cross and its terrible shame, before taking his place at the right side of the throne of God. Think about it. He endured such great opposition from wicked men it should encourage us to persevere in what we face.

In our struggles we haven’t had to reach the point of bleeding on a cross have we. And don’t forget, the Lord loves you even if he has to discipline you as a child at times. Endure it because you are in his compassionate hands as a son or daughter…. He only disciplines so that we may grow spiritually and produce a good harvest of right living and peace.” (my translation of Heb 12:2-11)

I am grateful to my Lord Jesus who loves me so perfectly, and so personally. He captures every word in my heart and arouses the dreams in my soul. He gets me! He knows what it feels like to walk in these shoes and his presence is better than a down comforter.

Don’t you love his last words in Matthew’s gospel? The resurrected Christ came to his doubting troubled friends and gave them (and us) a powerful promise to sustain on this journey.
“Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20)

Through the Fire

An old friend stopped by tonight to buy my last 10 books for her friends and family and stayed to tell me how God shines through the stories in Crickets and Thunder. Through the losses and separations over a lifetime, she said there was always hope shining through. "I need reminding now," I told her.

She talked about the power of brokenness using a couple of natural illustrations like fertilizing a garden with manure. Odd, how something as vile and distasteful as feces produces beauty in God's order, isn't it. After she left, I felt bathed in my soul, nourished by her words.

I think we may never fully grasp these things: the power of prayer, the power of our words to lift the soul, and the power of suffering to produce life.

And even as I sit here pecking out these thoughts, curiously, I'm listening to a PBS special called Life on Fire about the  islands of Papua New Guinea, where I spent four terms living in a jungle tribe. The images and thoughts are intertwining with my own,  like leaves landing on a river.

I've been watching colorful footage of a thousand giant megapodes soaring to the desolate wastelands of volcanic islands. They are strange and ugly birds that look like a cross between a chicken, a turkey, and a vulture, yet they have learned to survive in such harsh and desolate places. In fact, they depend on such conditions. 

These odd and little known creatures have survived by learning the benefits of laying their eggs in ground scorched by fire. Turns out, it is the perfect temperature to incubate eggs! And because there's no other known value in these ashen shorelines, no one else is trampling over the ground to endanger their nested infants, these seeds of hope for the future. 

Even these scroungy predators have a God-given wisdom in His ability to bring life out of the ashes. Why can't I?

What a great reminder! This is His specialty. 

We can trust Him in every area!
He is always at work,

even beneath the surface,
and through the fires,

in times of loss or isolation,
like seeds of hope planted
on ashen shorelines,  

Let hope shine through it all!