Because "Jeff" told me to

Somebody - we'll call him "Jeff" - recently complained about my lack of blog posts in the last few weeks. I wish there was a good reason for it, like that I'm off doing something amazing for the benefit of humanity, but mainly it's because I've recently discovered the tv show Fringe and now spend any free time I have at home watching it. I just started season 3 last night. Olivia is stuck on the other side and her mind has just been infiltrated with Olivia from the other side's memories while Olivia from the other side is back on our side pretending to be the real Olivia and Peter doesn't know! Oh my!

Anyway, I'm sorry, "Jeff," and everyone else, that I care more about watching tv than blogging. I've also decided to refinance my house to a 15 year mortgage, and this has taken up about 1 hour of my life as well. It's possible "Jeff" has been helping me with this. Here are some snippets of conversations that we've had over the last 10 days:

Jeff: "Give me your social security number."
Me: "Ok."

Jeff: "Give me your credit card number."
Me: "Ok."

Jeff: "Sell me your soul."
Me: "Ok."

Wait, that last one hasn't happened yet, but the day is still young and full of soul-selling potential, and I wouldn't put it past him to slide that one in on the side.

We also had this conversation:

Jeff: "Go see The Hobbit with me and some other people."
Me: "Ok."

So I went to see The Hobbit on Saturday with "Jeff" and some other friends. I don't see a lot of movies in the theater, probably because I'm at home watching Fringe all of the time. In fact, The Hobbit is only the 3rd movie I've seen in the theater since May. Don't tell "Jeff", but I kind of liked The Hobbit, only because I haven't read the book in 14 years and couldn't tell you where Peter Jackson strayed in accuracy. But "Jeff" can, and he disapproved.

Here is where today's blog post takes a sudden, unexpected, dark turn. I warned "Jeff" that this might happen.

About halfway through the movie on Saturday, I looked around the dark theater at all of the people sitting there enjoying the show (or not) and eating their popcorn (or spilling it on the ground, like I did) and the first thing that popped into my mind was, "Please don't let anyone come in here and gun us down."

It was an awful thought, and yet it being the day after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in CT and five months after the shooting in the Denver movie theater, it also wasn't an entirely unrealistic thought. And that grieves me.

And after the movie, I went to the mall to get a couple of things and as I walked into the mall, the same thought hit me: "Please don't let anyone gun us down in the mall." And it grieved me even more that I would have the same thought twice in one day and that it's real things that have happened that triggered the thought in the first place.

It's heartbreaking to live in a world where elementary schools, movie theaters, and malls are all of a sudden targets for angry, hurting gunmen. It's unfathomable to see the sweet faces of six and seven year old children on the news whose lives were snuffed out way too soon, and know that there are presents under Connecticut Christmas trees that will not be opened this year and families who will spend their holiday together amid many tears.

But it's also a reminder to me of why we even celebrate Christmas in the first place, because the world is a dark place in need of light.

I'll confess - I hate Christmas songs. It annoys me to no end that my favorite radio station decides to play Christmas songs 24 hours a day starting in mid-November. I ban the station from my car during those 39 days. I'm really not ready for Christmas songs until about 3:30 PM on Dec. 24, unless it's Amy Grant's "Tender Tennessee Christmas." This one is on my iPod year-round, because who's not ready for a tender Tennessee Christmas in the middle of August?

I talked to someone last week who had just returned from the predominantly Buddhist country of Myanmar. She said it was such a stark contrast to be in a place where there are very few Christians and most surround sound she heard while there were Buddhist chants and then to come back to America and be bombarded by our extreme love of all things Christmas, especially Christmas songs.

It is, after all, the one time during the year that people don't seem to mind being reminded of Jesus and singing songs about Him for 39 days straight. It's like this 6 week window where light is allowed to shine mostly unhindered and it's a beautiful thing.

This Christmas is going to be a hard one for a lot of people, maybe even for you. There are many heavy hearts both right here in Fort Collins this week and around the nation. If that is you, I will be praying for you. There are never perfect words to say to someone who is grieving or hurting or broken. You simply have to keep living each day, one moment at a time, until the pain lets up enough that you can start to breathe normally again. And that day does come.

But be reminded that there is light in your darkness. We celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 because it's the day that Christians picked to acknowledge the day that God entered into our world as a human baby. It was the brightest day in the history of the world.

 

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understoond it...the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world....the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

 

- John 1:4-5, 9, 14

 

My prayer for all of the families who will be hurting this Christmas is that somewhere, somehow they will find a little bit of light in their darkness. And if you are blessed to be healthy and safe and at peace within your family this year, think about how you can be a little bit of light to someone who is not.

 

Christmas blessings to you.

 

P.S. No, "Jeff," I will not sell you my soul.

 



Sneak Peek

This is going in the Lifetree Adventures newsletter tomorrow, but you, loyal blog reader, get to read it here first. And you get the better version, since this one has pictures. Don't say I don't love you.

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Thanksgiving meant a lot more this year to our team of 15 who served on Lifetree Adventures’ final 2012 mission trip, to the Dominican Republic, the week before the holiday. For most of our group, our week in Santo Domingo distributing Operation Kid-2-Kid backpacks and Spanish New Testaments to needy children was the first time most of our team members had traveled outside of the United States or Canada.

We spent most of the week visiting Compassion International projects and one day visiting a World Vision project, and interacted with close to 1,200 Dominican children throughout the week. We were impressed with the work that both of these organizations are doing within Santo Domingo communities but humbled by some of the things we heard during the week:

“Some people in this neighborhood have electricity for just one day a week.”

 

“For many of the children in this [Compassion International] project, the meal we give them is the only meal they will eat all day.”

“This neighborhood has almost no access to clean water. To buy bottled water costs more than some people make in one day, so they just don’t buy it and the drink water that is bad for them.”

 

Coming from a country where we can walk into virtually any public facility (hospital, library, grocery store, etc.) and get a drink from a drinking fountain and losing power usually only happens during a really fierce thunderstorm, and even then it’s usually restored within a couple of hours at most, and none of us have ever lived a day without food, it was an eye-opening and, at times, hard week.

But we also came home with hearts full of good stories of hope and healing.

Three of our team members got to meet children they sponsor through Compassion International. For these children, the bond that they have with their sponsors, now cemented even more from getting to meet their sponsors in person, will give them the motivation to stay in school, learn about God, and rise above the circumstances they were born into. At least one other person on our team came home with the name of a child that she will begin sponsoring later this month.

 

We learned that for every New Testament we gave out, it’s estimated that at least 5 people in that child’s life will read that New Testament. That means almost 3,000 Dominicans will have the chance to read the good news about God’s love for them because of this trip!

 

We discovered that two of the seven sites we visited have already begun clean water initiatives to provide their community with clean, cheap water, which will drastically reduce the number of water-borne illnesses currently affecting these areas.

 

So there is hope in the midst of darkness and reasons to be thankful. Thank you to everyone who financially supported, prayed for, and encouraged our team of 15. This trip could not have happened without you. And we know that the hundreds of children we met and shared God’s love with are thankful for you too.

 

We are excited to see all that God has in store around the world in 2013! Would you consider praying about joining one of our teams?

Hope

It's Sunday, December 2. There are so many noteworthy events that occur today that it's hard to keep track of them all!

First of all, it is Erika's 6 month wedding anniversary. And Robert's anniversary too, I suppose, since he's married to her. Happy 6 months to you both! I was honored to be part of your wedding and to continue to be part of your married life, even though we don't live as close to each other as we used to. Thanks for throwing your bouquet at me, even though it hasn't worked much magic yet. (To read the pre-Erika wedding blog post, click here)

Second, since it's Erika's anniversary, it is therefore also my half birthday. I am 33.5 years old today, which means you only have 6 more shopping months until my birthday. I like giftcards to Amazon and Starbucks. And sunflowers are my favorite. And as always, checks can be made out to Robin Clark.

Not only is it my half birthday it's my stepsister Diana's birthday and my oldest friend John's birthday. Oldest as in longest lasting friendship, not oldest in years, but you can read more about that here.

Finally, today is the first Sunday in Advent. In church this morning, we lit the first Advent candle, which stands for hope.

Hope. It's a small word with big expectations, sort of like the entire season of Advent itself. Advent is a short period of time in the church calendar but full of anticipation as we await the birth of Jesus, the moment when God did the impossible - entering into the confines of time in the limitations of a human body.

There is something about new life that brims with hope. My sweet little niece Sophie was born five weeks ago. She has a head full of dark brown hair and is on the verge of smiling any day now. She is just about as perfect as she can be and I can't help but be filled with hope every time I'm near her. I know she will someday have to face sickness, heartache, disappointment, and sorrow, because you can't live through life and not experience those things. But at the same time, I have hope for all of the joy and blessings that will come into her life as well.

Webster defines hope as "to cherish a desire with expectation of fulfillment." I hope that Sophie's life is full of joy, happiness, promise, and big dreams. And I don't just vaguely wish these things for her - by hoping for them, I long to see them actually happen and will do my part along the way, as her trusty aunt, to help them come into fulfillment. And I also promise to smack the first boy who tries to kiss her. And every subsequent boy after that.

I was reminded of hope through a different child earlier this week. Some of you may remember my blog about baby Joseph, the sick little boy our Peru team met in the jungle a few months ago. If you never read that story, you can read it here.

I found out on Wednesday that Joseph died in September from pneumonia. The reality is that out of the probably 1500 children I have come into contact with in Peru, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic over the last 18 months, there have most likely been several others who have died too. But Joseph was a hard to one to hear about, mostly because we all had so much hope that he would make it. We had hoped that we had helped him in time. We hoped that he would have a better life once he got that help. We hoped so much for him, and to hear that he died only a month later was very hard and seemed so unfair.

So much so that I woke up in the middle of the night on Wednesday and couldn't go back to sleep as I thought about his frail little body and how unfair it was that his life was cut so short. Being born in the jungle lowers your odds of thriving after birth anyway. Between lack of clean water, parasites, dangerous animals, and disease, any child who makes it to age 5 is a walking miracle. Joseph in many ways was probably the norm rather than the exception.

As I lied in bed thinking about how unfair it was that he died so young and wondering why God didn't honor our hopes for wholeness in his life on earth, I sensed God's gentle and quiet voice reminding me to think beyond the confines of my human body and think about eternity instead. And in the quiet stillness of the night, I realized that Joseph is healed now. His earthly body was too frail to support him and he never walked on his little legs in this life. But now, in heaven, he is not only walking, but running and jumping on legs that are strong and able to hold up his body. In his earthly life, he never had enough to eat and he never had clean water to drink. But now, in heaven, he is feasting at the table of the King and he is drinking from the river of life.

Every Sunday in church, whether it's Advent or not, we say the Nicene Creed together. I was struck today by the last sentence of the creed and it made me think of Joseph. It says, "We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come."

I am hoping for the life of the world to come. Joseph is already living in it.

And that's the whole point of this first Sunday in Advent, to remind us of what we hope for, to remind us that without a Savior who makes us clean and whole, we have no hope for the life of the world to come. We don't deserve the life of the world to come, and yet, when Jesus was born into human time, that hope presented itself to us.

My hope for this Advent season is that by the end of it, each of us will find ourselves closer to the One whose birth we celebrate in just a few weeks. If you think of it, please pray for Joseph's family. Even though death is a normal and expected part of jungle life, it is still hard and sad, just like it is here in America. Pray for their comfort and healing.

 

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

 

- Paul, in his letter to the Romans (8:22-25)



 

It's Thanksgiving and I'm not in Canada. What do I do?

It's Thanksgiving Day. Normally I'm in Canada on this day being part of normal Canadian life and not gorging myself on turkey and pumpkin pie, but this year I'm here in Fort Collins and looking forward to the feast to come this afternoon.

I don't always stop and think about what I'm thankful for when I'm in Canada on this day so it's a change to have reflective moments of thankfulness today. Really, it's something I should do every day, not just on the 4th Thursday in November when I happen to be in America, but I'm still grateful for the deliberateness of a day that reminds me of the good I know.

I saw Runaway Train again. Not just once, but four days in a row. It's probably the oddest thing to be thankful for on this day and yet it's what is most present in my thoughts this morning.

For anyone joining my blog since more or less February, Runaway Train is the nickname I gave to a man who had a very brief yet destructive place in my life. A completely unexpected diversion, someone who took my heart by surprise and then dropped it almost as quickly as he had snatched it up in the first place as he ran off to the next woman.

I have a tendency to take things to extremes. This combined with a tender and loyal heart means that when my heart breaks, it breaks hard and takes a long time to heal. I envy the people who seem to be able to bounce back from heartbreak in a brief amount of time. I have never been one of those people and doubt that I ever will.

I was almost healed when November finally appeared. Almost, but not quite. And I think it was the "not quite" that made seeing RT an unwelcomed necessity, sort of like how sometimes a bone needs to be re-broken so that it can be set correctly for healing to take place. Sometimes a cast isn't enough to heal the original break and more breaking is the only option to make straight what is crooked.

I recently read a book written by one of my colleagues - Sifted, by Rick Lawrence. There are books that come into our lives that seem to have been written just for us. That was Sifted to me. It's brilliant and I'm not just saying that because we both work at Group and sometimes I loan him my stapler. Rick takes a very short verse - "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." (Luke 22:31) - and tackles the hard subject of what it means when Jesus gives Satan permission to mess with our lives, to sift us as wheat.

It's one thing to believe in a God who allows hard and painful things to happen, like meeting RT in the first place. It's a whole other thing to believe in a God who doesn't stop - in fact, gives permission to - the enemy whose only purpose is to destroy.

I knew for about a month that the time with Runaway Train was coming. In hindsight, I'm both grateful and resentful of that month. Grateful because it gave me time to let the crazy, unfiltered, raw emotions run their course privately instead of publicly and it gave me lots of time to pray and talk through it with others. Resentful because of the heavy burden it brought into my life and the resulting stress and angst that threatened to take over what should have been a fun and exciting event.

I knew for a month that permission had been asked to sift me and the request was not denied. It is a very hard thing to look at the One you love, the One who has given everything on your behalf and understand why He would give permission to let you be sifted.

The sifting part is what we notice first in that verse in Luke, because that's the part that hurts and disrupts life. But the part that comes next brims with power - "I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail."

I had lots of people praying for me during the week that I had to see him again, but the most important person praying for me that week was Jesus Himself. My faith is of great worth to Him. It is a treasure that He cares for and died for and so He prayed that His treasure would not fail and I think it's reasonable to say that when Jesus prays, things happen.
So I survived my week of sifting. I realize I'm leaving a lot of details out, and that's deliberate. But I will say that through the sifting, I was given closure and the freedom to finally leave him behind with no more questions, no more longing (it's crazy how much you can still long for someone who shattered your heart), and no more reason to ever talk to him again. For real this time. The bone has been reset and is no longer crooked and it no longer needs a cast.

I keep thinking about what I should have done differently a year ago when he first appeared in my life, but I think that's a protective mechanism more than anything. If anything, I think the lesson is to keep living life exactly the same way. I wasn't looking for love when I met him. He was unexpected but I think that is the best way for love to start. I would rather be taken by complete surprise and have to re-route my life, even around heartache, then to spend all of my time running after love that may never come. I think that is where the greater heartache comes - when you invest everything in trying to get and find love only to be let down if you never find it and realize how much you missed out on along the way. I would rather live each day to its fullest rather than spending my brief moments here on earth seeking something I may never find.

So as I have the rare opportunity to be in America on Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for the hardest week of my life, the week spent with Runaway Train, for the growth, the closure, the strength, and the beauty that it brought. I'm thankful that even though Jesus sometimes gives Satan permission to try and wreck our lives, He prays for us that our faith won't fail.

I'll eat pumpkin pie to that.

Quiet

I'm still on Santo Domingo time as I write this at 6:20 AM. I've been wide awake for about an hour and a half, knowing that it's after 9:00 AM on a small Caribbean island and that traffic is crazy, the morning school shift is underway, and life is going on three hours ahead of me as I sit in the still dark (and cold) early Fort Collins morning.

I savor these first few days after getting home. It's like holding a newborn baby - so quiet and sweet and precious, who in just a few short weeks will grow and change and never be that newborn again.
There is a stillness in my soul and a gentleness in my heart that I don't seem to find anywhere else except after spending 8-10 days outside of my own country, surrounded by those with much less than me materially but so much more relationally and spiritually.

I think a lot of people want to go on a mission trip because they truly believe they can save the world in the course of seven days. People who have maybe never stepped foot in a soup kitchen in their own community or shared their faith with the neighbor across the street. To be honest, I've never done either of those things either. And I know for sure that my week in Santo Domingo didn't result in any great changes in anyone's life except maybe my own.

But this trip more than any other taught me some important things. I learned how to walk slower, how to listen without needing to speak, how to care for those with needs far greater than my own. I learned that forgiveness sets one free but that there is wisdom in creating boundaries with those who have caused great harm. I also got to meet one of the girls I sponsor through Compassion International. I plan to blog separately about that experience, but for now I can say that while my week in Santo Domingo didn't save or change Estrella's life in one instant, my monthly commitment to her over the course of the next 7 or 8 years will change her life.

I know that in a few more days I will be sucked back into the frantic pace of my American life. I will stay in bed until 7:00 AM and moan and whine about things like my obnoxious cat or not being able to make the copy machine work. All of the silly things that distract me and keep me stressed. But for today I sit quietly in the dark morning holding my quiet and gentle heart, grateful for the stillness that poverty, chaotic traffic, and unfamiliar language brings to my soul.

Hey Russia

I decided to do some research on who reads my blog and discovered that I can actually see what countries of the world read my blog. This is especially helpful in knowing who is NOT reading my blog because it means I can continue to blog freely, something that will be very helpful in about a month.

Not surprisingly, my blog is read most frequently right here in America. Thanks, America, for your continued faithfulness to me in spite of my frequent comments of adoration about Canada, and my propensity to leave your beautiful shores whenever possible. I am truly proud to be an American, unless America re-elects the man who is trying to turn America into Canada, in which case I am just going to move to Canada. But that's a different blog for a different day.

What was surprising was to discover that after America, the country that reads my blog the most by a landslide is Russia. What? Huh? Come again? This stunning revelation is worthy of its own blog post. So, Russia, this one is for you.

I've been wracking my brain for the last 48 hours trying to remember if I even know anyone who lives in Russia, and I can't come up with anyone who does. So, if you're my good friend reading my blog in Russia, I'm really sorry that I don't remember you at all. Send me a message, let's re-connect.

It's shocking to me that for every Canadian who reads my blog, there are 3 Russians who read it. Or one Russian who reads it three times for every one time a Canadian does. Ironically, Canada isn't even third on the list. No, third on the list is Germany. I can only hope that it is Dietrich Bonhoeffer reading my blog from the grave. I love you, Dietrich.

Canada is actually 4th on the list. Really, Canada? I thought we knew each other better than that. But I digress. This blog is not about Canada, it's about my surprise Russian fanbase I had no clue I had.

I do want you to know that I know some Russian words, including nyet, dos vedanya, and gulag. I will try to be more sensitive in my blogging going forward and include these words when it makes sense, such as, "I remember that time that I was imprisoned unjustly in that Russian gulag." So far, that doesn't make sense for me to blog about, since it hasn't happened yet. We can only hope.

So whoever you are, loyal Russian readers, thank you for taking the time out of your busy Russian days to read my blog. I hope you are bundled up nice and warm. I get cold just thinking about your homeland.

 

I'll leave you with this thoughtful sign someone hung up in my cubicle awhile back. From now on, whenever I see it, I will think of you.

When a wasp stops being a wasp

Every year around this time, when the temperature drops to the 30's and 40's at night, and the leaves turn yellow and fall off the trees, the wasps start dying. They find their way into my house, through the fireplace, through cracks in the door, through secret entrances into my warm house that only they know about.

They can't fly anymore - the cold is more than their little bodies can take. Everything that makes them wasps disappears. So they roam around the floor until they just give up and die. I find little wasp corpses in corners, under chairs, and pressed up against the wall until the end of November or so.

Last night as I was getting ready to take a shower, I saw a wasp in the corner of the bathroom, grounded, obviously on his last leg. He wasn't a threat but I hung my clothes up a little higher than usual just to be careful. As I showered, I thought about how in different circumstances, such as the wasp being healthy and angry, it would be very different to be cooped up in a small room with one. Scary, nerve-wracking, and maybe even deadly to some people.

But not now in this situation. It couldn't harm me unless I went out of my way to be harmed, such as trying to pet it or maybe put it in my mouth, as my cats have done and learned the hard way that a grounded wasp can still be a dangerous wasp. This particular wasp was dead within an hour of me finding it. Something powerful and dangerous all of a sudden no longer a threat. A wasp that was no longer a wasp.

I just finished reading The Shack for the first time about a month ago. I'm guessing there are some of you out there who read it and loved it, maybe it even changed your life. Then there are some of you who wouldn't go near it with a ten foot pole because of all of the things you've heard and read and researched about it. It's too blasphemous to even warrant a read, much like the reaction during the early days of Harry Potter. Others of you probably read it, thought it was interesting, and then didn't really think about it again.

A few years ago, I was in the camp that wouldn't go near it with a ten foot pole. But then a Great Sadness came into my life in early 2010. And just as I was healing from that, another season of loss and pain happened in early 2012. Between the two events, I had no choice but to look God hard in the face, cry to him, be angry and sad, and question much of what I had taken as truth simply because I had been told it my whole life. I needed God to be real to me after these two losses. And he was. So when I finally decided to read this book, I switched camps. I loved it and will probably read it again at some point.

If you haven't read The Shack, I don't want to give it away to you in case you do decide to someday read it. But it centers around the main character Mack having to return to the shack, which is the source of a great pain and loss in his life. When he gets to the shack, there's a surprise visitor (or rather three) waiting there for him. He's able to sort through much of his grief and find healing in unique and powerful ways. And God becomes very real to him through it.

God is sending me back to my shack. I was hoping he wouldn't, but he is. He's sending me right back into a situation that caused tremendous pain and heartache. I've spent the last week alternating between feeling fine about it and then being scared out of my mind and not being able to stop crying about it. But it is what is - I will be back there whether I want to be or not. And God will need to be real and he is going to need to be there every moment of that situation or I won't be able to do it.

The other thing that Mack has to deal with during his time at the shack is forgiveness. I grew up a Christian. I can tell you the pat answers for everything pertaining to forgiveness. But I'll tell you what - when faced with having to go back to my shack and deal with someone who crushed me, all of a sudden I realize that I don't have a clue what it really means to forgive in the way that God forgives me. Nor do I know how to do it. The anger and the bitterness and the hatred in my heart seem to be more powerful than any forgiveness I've ever known about.

But what I learned last night from having the wasp in the bathroom while I showered is that even the things that are powerful and dangerous and potentially deadly can be rendered benign in the right moment. When something loses its power, it can't win anymore. No matter how much it might try, like the grounded wasp clinging to life, it just can't win. A grounded wasp, though it still looks like a wasp on the outside, stops being what makes a wasp a wasp when it's cold, grounded, and dying.

I'm not quite there yet with my shack situation but I do know that there was a time not that long ago when the thought of going back and having to see someone I had hoped I would never have to see or talk to again would have been nothing but terrifying for me. But (I think and hope) the power has been lost now. Just like that wasp, it can't do real damage to me unless I try really hard to let it (as in putting it in my mouth. That won't be happening.) Now it's simply a matter of letting God teach me how to forgive. The wasp has stopped being a wasp.

This morning I read this:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4)

I can't say that I'm overjoyed at having to return to my shack and all of the flood of emotions I am going to have to deal with the entire time I'm there. It will be a trial. I'm going to be angry, I'm going to have to keep a very tight rein on my tongue, and I will probably cry a lot behind closed doors. But I eagerly await and long for the perseverance, maturity, and completeness that will come because of this, and the chance to learn and see what God really means when he says that he's forgiven me.

Favorite fall recipes

Fall is hands down my favorite time of year - the crispness in the air, the warm days and cool nights, the vibrant red, yellow, and orange leaves, and of course lots of yummy comfort food. I've been on a cooking rampage for the last 8 days, as if fall is only going to last for a snippet and I need to get all of the cooking out of me before it becomes freezing cold and all I want to do is hide under a blanket and cry. In case you haven't noticed, I have a tendency towards extremes.

I thought I would share my favorite fall recipes with you, since I made almost all of them in the last 72 hours (definitely all of them have been made in the last 8 days). Pretty much all I did on Saturday was cook and it was the best day ever.

Disclaimer: None of these recipes are Robin originals. There are no Robin original recipes out there. I'm all for just making other people's recipes.

We start off our culinary adventure with Pumpkin Quinoa Soup. You can make this with either canned pumpkin or you can roast a fresh pumpkin (and you get pumpkin seeds out of that deal too - bonus! What? You need a recipe for roasting pumpkin seeds? Try this one) This soup is amazing and doesn't taste pumpkiny at all. Also, quinoa would be a great word to use in Words with Friends. You can thank me later for that hint. I guess you could make this without the quinoa (pronounced keen-wa. Now go back and reread the paragraph, pronouncing it correctly), although I've never done it that way.

Ingredients
1-2 pounds chicken sausage (I usually get a basil or apple variety at Sprouts)
1/2 onion
3 cups chicken broth
15 ounces pumpkin
1 tsp garlic powder
salt/pepper/dash of allspice
1/2 cup cream
quinoa (optional)

I usually make the quinoa first - 1 cup of water to 1/2 cup quinoa. Combine them in a pot, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on low for about 15 minutes.

Brown the sausage and the onion in a soup pot. Add the broth, pumpkin and seasonings. Stir together and simmer on low for 15-20 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in cream (and quinoa, if you're using it). Then invite me over for dinner.

If you do, I'll be sure to bring some Fresh Apple Cookies. The street name for this recipe is "fall in a cookie." For not having any chocolate in them at all, these cookies hold their own. And since they have apples in them, they're healthy and you can eat them for breakfast (at least that's how I justify it.)

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 & 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 egg, beaten (I always think it sounds so sad for the egg, as if it's been defeated.)
1/4 cup apple juice or milk (I always use milk)
1 cup chopped apples (or just one apple)
1/2-1 cup chopped nuts (optional) (I use pecans)

Vanilla Glaze Ingredients (you know any cookie that involves vanilla glaze is a keeper)
1 cup icing sugar
1 TBSP butter, softened
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 & 1/2 TBSP milk

To make cookies: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour and baking soda in medium bowl. In a large bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and the poor beaten egg. Add half the flour to the butter mixture and blend well. Mix in juice or milk. Add the apples and nuts to the remaining flour. Add this apple mixture to the butter mixture. Drop by spoonfuls on greased cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes or until cookies are firm.

To make glaze: Blend all ingredients together until smooth. While cookies are hot, spread with vanilla glaze. (I usually put a sheet of wax paper down under the cooling rack because the glaze will run). Makes 3 dozen cookies.

I'm sad that Laura, Amy, Ray, Paige, Gwennie, and I devoured all 36 of them within 12 hours of their birth. I'd like to be eating one right now. C'est la vie!

I know you're wondering what to do with the rest of the pumpkin you cooked to make the pumpkin quinoa soup. Never fear! I have a Pumpkin Bread recipe for you!

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon
2 cups pumpkin, canned or freshly cooked
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 & 1/4 cups oil (I used a canola/olive oil blend this last time since I ran out of canola oil about 3/4 cup in)

Mix dry ingredients in bowl. Make a well in the center. Add the remaining ingredients into the well and stir just enough to mix. Pour into two 9" x 5" bread pans. Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Try to not eat the entire loaf in one sitting.

Wow, this has been a lot of writing. Need some visual stimulation? I thought so.

What could these all possibly be ingredients for? If you're thinking Potato and Leek Soup, you're pretty much amazing, just like this soup.

I'm feeling super lazy by now, so instead of typing out the instructions, I will instead link you here.  Word to the wise on this endeavor: while the above picture is pretty with the purple potatoes, I don't recommend actually using them in the soup after all. While it didn't change the flavor, it did turn the soup a really funky nasty greyish purplish color and it looked like gruel. Because I am the only one eating the soup in my house, it doesn't matter to me what color it is, but husbands and children may not like eating it when it's that color. In the past I've just used russet potatoes, as suggested in the recipe and that just keeps it a normal potato looking color.

I also made a turkey meatloaf and a parmesan and broccoli souffle (I told you I've been out of control for the last 8 days), but those were first time adventures for me and haven't yet earned the coveted "Robin's Favorite Fall Recipe" status yet. Maybe next year.

What's your favorite fall recipe?

California

As you may remember, my dear friend Jessie moved to California about four months ago. It was sad for me and you can read about it here. But the happy part of the story is that I love to travel and so last weekend I went out to California to see Jessie, Randy, and Jake.

I'm happy to report that they are doing well and they have an adorable house and Randy loves his job and Jake is just as spry as ever, even at his ripe old age of 13. We had an action packed weekend filled with In-N-Out, kayaking, playing cards, watching movies, playing Words with Friends on our phones with each other while sitting in the same room, a little drinking, a lot of Starbucks,  not to mention great conversations where Jessie and I conquered many of the world's problems such as orphans, poverty, religion, and politics. My weekend there had all of the components that I love about going to Canada, just condensed into 3 days.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let my pictures from the weekend do some talking.

Animal style extra toast

Kayaking at Half Moon Bay

Some other bay we found

We almost died trying to climb down this hillside. When we got to the bottom, we found stairs just to the left of where we emerged.

Here Jessie is remembering walking through a hard time and only seeing one set of footprints in the sand but that was when Jesus carried her through that hard time.

Seriously. It was amazing.

Randy picking lemons from their lemon tree.

Aren't they beautiful?

My buddy Jake.

My high school friend Ellen also lives in the Bay area with her husband and their two kids, so on Sunday evening I went to a Rosh Hashana service with them. This was actually the first time in my life I ever went to a Jewish service and I really loved it. Rosh Hashana is Jewish New Year and a time of celebrating what God has done in the previous year and preparing for the year ahead. Part of how you celebrate is by eating apples and honey. The next ten days after Rosh Hashana are a time of making amends and seeking forgiveness from anyone you've wronged in the year before. After this, Yom Kippur happens, which is the Day of Atonement.

Turner and I celebrating Rosh Hashana. He was mostly celebrating how good my thumb tasted.

Meira and I enjoying our Rosh Hashana apples.

So it was a great weekend and I will be back, probably many times. California is a little closer and cheaper to get to than Canada, so it will fill in the gaps nicely between Canada trips. It's also convenient that they can both be abbreviated to CA.

Finally, many of you have asked about Charlie over the past week. You all seem to be very concerned about his well being while forgetting that he was the one who attacked ME, not the other way around. For the record, he is fine and me and my face have recovered with minimal damage. As you can see, he is feeling cuddly and nice once again. Now would be the perfect time to adopt him into your home!

On second thought

I'd like to recant every nice thing I said about Charlie in my earlier blog this week due to his once again proving that he is, in fact, spawn from the pit of hell. Or, at the least, a thorn in my side sent to torment me.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I saw Charlie in his usual spot on the couch. He looked so sweet and cuddly, and my heart was still brimming with warmhearted feelings after our tender moment the other day.

He lured me in and I sat down next to him. Bad move, Rob. You should know better by now. He started purring. I started to pat his head.

It all happened so fast and it's still hard to talk about, but here goes.

He met my gentle head petting with a vicious swipe of his paw on my face, locking his claw into my lip and yanking down hard. As I screamed and flailed my arms to get him to let go, he released his grip on my lip and pounced on my arm, biting my hand and kicking me with his back legs.

Evil cat. Evil cat who I'm stuck with for the rest of his life because other people are smart enough to know better.

Somehow I got away from him and stumbled to the bathroom to survey the blood streaming down my face. He followed me, like a character  in some cheesy overrated horror movie. He purred and rubbed himself against my legs. I wiped the blood off my face and put on some makeup. He took off running into the laundry room and made a loud commotion, which turned out to be this:



Oh, Charlie. What am I ever going to do with you?

Maybe Charlie isn't so bad after all

Many of you know my valiant efforts to find a new forever home for my vivaciously naughty orange tabby cat, Charlie. Charlie is known around my house as the one who bullies sweet little Midge and eats her food, destroyer of the toilet paper roll in the bathroom every chance he gets, and has been known to pull this little stunt on many a Monday morning right as I'm trying to leave for work:

There's a verse in the Bible that talks about how some just spend their time inventing ways to do evil. That is Charlie in a nutshell.

But yesterday Charlie earned some good PR and he deserves the chance to have his bad name cleared, at least for a few hours. Or minutes. Or seconds, as the case may be.

There was another closed door yesterday. I'll spare you the gory details but rest assured, they were gory and sad. Very, very sad. It's true that I might have overreacted a little bit by locking myself in the bathroom (after verifying that my roommate was in fact gone) and lying down on the bathroom floor and sobbing hysterically for about 45 minutes. But it is what it is and I was really, really sad and that seemed like the most logical thing to do in that moment.

About 35 minutes into my crying fest, party of one, the bathroom doorknob started jiggling. I paused long enough to assess whether it was my roommate suddenly come home or perhaps a poltergeist. The long mournful meow that I heard next confirmed it was actually Charlie come to check on me. This was confirmed by the little orange paw that started making sweeping motions under the door crack.

For as obnoxious as he is 23 hours and 57 minutes of the day, Charlie does have a tender heart. It really bothers him when I cry. He feels compelled to jump into action and do his part to comfort me, and last night was no exception.

So I opened the bathroom door and let him come in. Then I fell over wailing again on the floor. Charlie took it in stride. First, he came and snuggled in close to my head and put his little paw on my arm. For some reason, this actually made me cry harder. He sensed that and then got up and paced around my crumpled body, stopping once to lick my leg for a few moments. For good measure, he also bit my foot twice. I have no doubt that if I had died on that bathroom floor, he would have wasted no time snacking on me until help came, 20 minutes later in the form of my roommate returning home.

There's a verse in the Bible that says, "Praise be to...the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles." I thought of that verse last night as I was lying on the bathroom floor.  I was alone in that moment, but I wasn't. God sent Charlie, good old obnoxious Charlie, into the bathroom with me so that I wouldn't be alone in my time of sorrow. Praise be to the God who can use a naughty tabby cat to comfort His child when she's sad.

So it turns out, Charlie isn't so bad. He would be a great comforting addition to any home, maybe even yours.

One year

I've been blogging for Erika for one year as of today! You can read how it all began here.

I'll point out that since August 30, 2011 I have gone to the dentist, gotten my first smart phone 20 years ahead of schedule, and just last week started reading The Shack four years earlier than planned.

I still hate skim milk.  That is not going to change. But I am actually ordering it sometimes in my white chocolate mochas because I realized that I can't really tell it's skim milk when there's so much white chocolatey goodness floating around with it. So even there, the blog has worked wonders in pushing me well outside of my comfort zone. You're the best, Erika.

I wonder what else I can speed up between now and August 30, 2013 since I've blown all of my other expectations of myself out of the water. I was planning on waiting until 2022 to become a millionaire, but why put it off?

In other news, today was our annual retreat day at work. The Camps department is nice enough to let Dave and I go with them on their retreat every year and today we all went to Boondocks in Denver. Someone had the brilliant idea that we should play laser tag, guys vs. girls. I'm all for men and women being equal but when it comes to laser tag, I would much rather run with the boys. Take a look at our final score and you will understand why (guys were red, girls were green):

That's right. We lost 27,125 to -70. Yes, that's negative 70. As I reflect on the next year of blogging, maybe I'll make it my number one goal to become a better laser tag player. Erika and I have talked about laser tag a lot in the past; I think it's time to make those conversations reality.

Happy anniversary, blog! Thank you for letting me write you. And thank you, Erika, for telling me to.

God in a motocar

I got back on Tuesday afternoon from an 11 day trip to Peru.

I love Peru. It's my first boyfriend when it comes to international travel. The first time I went to Peru was when I was 17 and it was the first time I had ever traveled to another country. And just like your first boyfriend or the first guy you kiss, your first international experience will always hold a special place, a fondness, in your heart.

Thus is Peru's place in my heart.

This trip was my fourth visit to Peru and was definitely a memorable one.  First, I had the honor of spending a week with some of the most amazing 37 people I've ever met in my life.  They were a hard-working, God-loving, and just plain fun bunch of people and it was a joy to be with them. Second, I got to see my dear friends Ricardo, Gloria, Segundo, Edwin, and Betsi again.  Wonderful people with big hearts and from whom I learn a lot about servanthood, humility, and how to pound in a nail the right way.  I also got a big hug from sweet little Mariceli, who made me swear last year that I wouldn't ever forget her. I have kept my promise so far.

But the moment that will last the longest in my heart from this trip is the moment that I saw little Joseph in a motocar in Pucallpa on Friday morning as we were getting ready to leave for the airport to fly back to Lima.

See, I think one of the reasons God sent our group to Villa Esther last week was so that we could find Joseph and help save his life.

The first time we saw him was Tuesday afternoon.  You have to understand that to get to Villa Esther we had traveled by boat for about 6 hours and then walked 2.5 miles from the boat to the village.  Finding Joseph at all was a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.  But there he was on Tuesday afternoon, nestled in his mother's arms. 

I saw him from the corner of my eye and immediately did a double take because he was the most malnourished little child I've ever seen in my life.  I've seen pictures of kids living through famines and Joseph could have easily stood in for one of those kids.  His arms and legs were sticks and his belly protruded alarmingly. 

We were blessed to have a doctor and multiple nurses serving on this team, so I called the doctor and his nurse wife over and the three of us introduced ourselves to this young mother holding this very sick little boy.

With my limited translation skills, we were able to learn that his name was Joseph, he was a year old, he hadn't started walking yet but could stand, and for some inexplicable reason, he had stopped eating when he was 11 months old, just a month earlier.  When you're only 11 months old and you decide to stop eating, it doesn't take long for you to waste away.  We knew that unless Joseph received professional medical care, and very soon at that, he would die.

His mother knew we were concerned and she seemed to be near tears herself as she told us about the last month.  I always come home from these trips with a deeper understanding of how blessed life really is for me, no matter how much I may whine and complain and cry about it, and standing there with Joseph's mother made me realize just how much I take for granted here in my posh American life.

I have more than enough food, I have easy access to free clean drinking water from water fountains in virtually any library, grocery store, or park I may wander into, and if my body stops working correctly, I can get medical help within a very short amount of time, and I have medical insurance that will cover most of my expenses for the help I receive.

Not so for Joseph and his mother in the jungle that afternoon.

Our advice to her was "get your son to a hospital as soon as you can." But we were in the middle of the jungle, in a village that had been inundated with a flood earlier this year that resulted in the loss of 2/3 of their crops for the year.  Crops that would be used for food and to sell for families to earn an income.  We may as well have told this mother to run for President of the United States when we told her to get Joseph to a hospital.

But there were big hearts present in this group.  As word of Joseph's condition spread around our group, one person stepped forward and gave his mom the money she would need to get him medical help.  The next afternoon, she, along with the other women in the village, set up a little craft market for us.  Joseph sucked on a lollipop someone from the group had given him.  Not the best thing for him to be eating, probably, but still encouraging to see that he had some desire for food still in him and calories from a lollipop are better than no calories at all when your body is that tiny and frail. Several people made a point to buy from his mother.

We said our goodbyes to Villa Esther the next day, Thursday, and left with dim hope for Joseph's future.  How could we be sure that his mother would even use the money to go get him help?  I know in America, I'm super hesitant to give money to the homeless guys on the street who ask for it because it's most likely that they will immediately use it to buy liquor.  How could we be sure that Joseph's mother would actually use the money to take him to a hospital? We had to entrust a lot to God when we said goodbye.

Yet you're remembering that I said earlier that the memory that sticks out the most from this trip is that of seeing Joseph in a motocar in Pucallpa on Friday morning.  And that's exactly what happened.

God orchestrated a lot of things that Friday morning when we first got back to Pucallpa for that moment with Joseph to actually happen.

First, there was a holdup at the marina when we tried to park the boat.  Negotations had to be made, money had to be paid, and we were finally able to dock at a less than desirable spot that no one was super excited about having to walk through.  All 43 pieces of luggage had to be carried up from the boat back to the bus. Then all 38 of us had to precariously cross a makeshift log bridge over what was basically raw sewage flowing into the river.

I was the last one of our group to head up the bank that morning, and just as I got to the top, I was distracted by seeing Mariceli and her family (her dad is the pastor of Ricardo's church in Pucallpa).  We had a little reunion, they gave me a gift, we took pictures and hugged each other a lot.  Then I had to find the last couple of stragglers who were wandering around taking pictures of the bustling Pucallpa dock life.  By the time we made it up to the street, we had lost the rest of the group.  It takes real skill to lose a group of 35 Americans in a poor Peruvian city, but I managed to do it.

I called Ricardo and handed my phone to the pastor so that he could tell Ricardo where we were, and as Barb, Susan, and I stood there on the street corner, we saw a familiar face peeking out at us from a motocar on the other side of the street.  It was Joseph and his mother and grandmother!  Right there, in the middle of Pucallpa, driving by at the exact moment that the three of us walked up!

Pucallpa is not a small city - there are over 310,000 people who live there, and probably at least 100,000 motocars.  The odds of us seeing Joseph in a motocar in Pucallpa were about as slim as us finding him in the jungle in the first place.  But there he was.

The memory that brings tears to my eyes is when he stretched out his frail little arm and waved to us from across the street.  It was the most movement I had seen from him that whole week, and just seeing that little wave filled me with so much hope that he would make it.

Every night on most Lifetree Adventures trips, we take some time to talk about God-sightings from the day.  We believe that God shows up in some way every day if we just take the time to look for Him. Seeing Joseph in Pucallpa was my God-sighting for the whole week, that God would send our team to this extremely small village in the middle of the jungle, where we would meet this little boy who desperately needed help, and in faith we would leave his mother with money hoping that she would take him to Pucallpa to get him the help he needed, only to have our last view of Pucallpa to be of him sitting in a motocar on his mother's lap on his way to go get that help. 

You might not believe there is a God. Or you might think it's a waste of time and money for a group of American Christians to go to another country for a week when there's plenty of needy people here in the U.S. Or you may think we shouldn't interfere with other cultures or give handouts. And in some cases, I would probably agree with you.

But I saw God in that motocar in that frail little arm waving goodbye to us.  I remembered that Jesus said that whatever you do for the least of these people on earth, you are doing for Him. Joseph is important enough to the God of the universe that God moved a lot of mountains and orchestrated a lot of unique circumstances to make sure that little boy was sitting in that motocar that Friday morning.

I don't know that Joseph will make it, even now.  But I pray he does, and I hope you will pray for him too.  I will probably never know this side of life what happens to Joseph, but God knows the number of hairs he has on his head, and will walk with Joseph through the rest of his life here on earth.

Joseph and his mama in Villa Esther

Precious cargo

I'm in the drive thru line at Chik-fil-A writing my first ever blog on my phone. That will purposely keep me succinct!

I've been in my car a lot today. This afternoon I drove halfway to Denver to meet Angela to give her a bunch of purses and jewelry that a couple of Colorado Lifetree Adventures' teams brought back from Haiti earlier this summer. It was the final leg of the journey for these handcrafted goods and I was honored to be part of it.

Driving my shiny red Mazda3 down the interstate, I thought about the women whose lives were represented in the goods in plastic bags in the trunk of my car. I don't know their names but I can guess some of their stories.

Teenage mom raped by a family member, thrown out of her house and trying as hard as she can to make a better life for herself and her child.

A woman with four kids who found out about Heartline's program by word of mouth. Her kids have different fathers because as each previous father abandons the family, she has to find another man to help support her and her kids, but now no one wants to be with her because she has so many kids so they are alone. Today, she is learning to read in addition to learning to sew.

A college graduate who defied the odds and made it all the way to her graduation but can't find a job because they are scarce in Haiti. So now she is learning to sew and make jewelry.

So many different stories and lives waiting back in Haiti for these purses to make it to the Haitian Creation store in Colorado, to be sold so that they can receive their hard earned dollars.

And today I got to be a very small part in making sure that happens for each of them.

I am so proud of the women in Haiti who work so hard to rise above the din and chaos and heartache of life, who have stories that I will never be able to comprehend and a dignity I can only hope to someday have.

I've spent a lot of time in the last year thinking and praying about whether or not I should someday go and live and serve in another country, maybe even in Haiti. For now, God is being pointedly silent about that (which I know causes my boss to breathe a sigh of relief) but today as I drove these purses down, I was reminded of a verse in Esther.

At this point in the story, Esther has married the king and become queen, and she has discovered that an evil man has a plan to kill the Jews. Esther, who is Jewish herself, is in a position to do something about it and her uncle reminds her of this by saying, "Who knows but that you have come into this position for such a time as this?"

I'm not on the verge of saving a nation or anything, but I had this clear picture today of once again knowing I'm exactly where God wants me to be. Today that position involved making sure those purses got to Angela so she can sell them and those Haitian women can get food on their tables. On Friday, that position involves flying down to Peru with about 100 pounds of clothes, books, tools, toys, and other gifts to give to a Shipibo village next week, ironically called Esther village.

Who knows what it will involve a month or a year or 5 years from now, but I do know that God knows and He will continue to put me where He wants me for such a time as He wants me there. I'm grateful for each chance I get to be part of something bigger than my safe Fort Collins life, even when that something is as small as carrying precious cargo down to a Starbucks parking lot at Exit 235 on I-25.

If you'd like to purchase some of these beautiful purses and jewelry, and learn more about the women who make them, check out Haitian Creations
(I cheated and finished this at home...but most of it was written in the drive thru, I promise.)

The Haitian Creation women hard at work on manual sewing machines!

You know you want one!

Thanks be to God

Most of you know by now that I've been going to a little Anglican church for about 15 months (when I'm actually in Fort Collins on a Sunday morning, which doesn't happen all that often.)  For those of you who didn't know that and have been wondering why you haven't seen me around at the previous church for awhile, sorry to break the news to you, in a blog, 15 months later. 

A couple of months ago, I ran into just such a person from my previous church who didn't know I had left and she seemed a little shocked when I told her I was going to *gasp* an Anglican Church.  She actually asked me straight up, "How do you reconcile your faith with going to a church like THAT?"

In hindsight, I probably should have asked her what she meant by that, but I assumed that she meant what everyone else has meant who's asked the similar question over the last 15 months - "Have you lost your mind?  Why would you leave an awesome non-denominational church for a liturgical church that has, worldwide, in recent times been fraught with all kinds of turmoil?  It's not too late to come back!  Jesus still loves you even though you have made this profound error in judgment."

It would take me a long time to answer this question in completion, and really nobody cares all that much anyway.  I think they're more just concerned that I am no longer following Jesus but am instead following a religion.  I'm grateful for the many friends who have visited my new little Anglican Church with me and have seen just how Christ-centered it is.  The invitation to join in worship with me on any Sunday is always there so you can see it too.

Today I am able to add even more to the answer of why I choose to worship at this season in my life in a liturgical church.

For those of you who have never visited one, just heard things about them, such as that no one who goes to a Episcopal, Anglican, Lutheran, Catholic, Presbyterian, or fill in the blank liturgical Church is a Christian because you can't possibly be a Christian if you go to a church where you say and pray the same things week after week and do things like observe Lent or go to confession, let me tell you about just this one aspect of the service that struck me so profoundly this morning.

Every Sunday there are at least two readings from Scripture, more often three, and a Psalm is read in unison.  So it goes Old Testament reading, Psalm said together, New Testament reading, and a reading from the Gospel.

After the OT and NT readings, the reader says, "The Word of the Lord." 

The congregation answers and says, "Thanks be to God."

We say it every week.  I've said it dozens of times since I've started going to Christ Our Hope.  There are plenty of times that I haven't really thought about those four little words as I've said them, but they really caught my attention today.

The OT reading was from Deuteronomy 28.  The chapter is towards the end of Deuteronomy after a whole bunch of laws have been given to the Israelite people.  I love Deuteronomy.  It's long been a favorite book of mine, though an odd choice I admit.  I love it because it captures both the compassionate heart of God to want to bless and prosper and cherish the ones He loves but also a very clear laying down the law that He is God and He is holy and that there is very much a distinction between Him and us and that by even breaking one of the various laws He's spelled out, we've proved to Him, to ourselves, and to everyone else that we will never live up to His standard.

That's why Jesus is such good news, because He reconciles the compassionate heart of mercy God has with God's heart for justice.  But I digress.

So Deuteronomy 28 starts out explaining all of the wonderful blessings that will come if the people just follow God.  They will be blessed no matter what - everything they do will be blessed! It's like God is giving them the Midas touch if they just obey Him.  It would be great to just stop reading right there, but then God goes on to give a list of curses, or all of the things that will happen if the people do not follow Him. 

It says things like, "At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark.  You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you."  And later on, it says, "The Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.  You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life."

Well, that sounds really crappy.  I'll take the blessings for obedience, please, and how about you just turn a blind eye when I disobey, God, ok?

It was actually really uncomfortable to hear the curses for disobedience read.  But you know what was even more uncomfortable?

"Thanks be to God."

Wow.  Did I really just thank God for telling me about the awful ways my life is going to go down if I don't put Him first?  I think I did.  Hmmmm.

I'm all for thanking God for good things, but thank Him for bad things or hard things?  That's different.  There's no discrimination here, either.  It's not like we say, "No thank you, God" when we are read a passage that makes us squirm.  No.  We say "Thanks be to God" week after week because every part of His Word deserves examination and reception with a grateful heart.

In saying "Thanks be to God" after the Scripture is read, I'm basically saying, "I hear what you've said, God, and I thank you for saying it to me. I trust that you have spoken the truth to me, no matter how hard it is to hear it. I trust you, I surrender to you, I thank you for communicating so clearly to me through your Word."

Thanks be to God.

These four little words challenged me today about whether or not I choose not only to obey or disobey God, but whether or not I'm choosing to trust Him in spite of the uncomfortable things His Word has to say about sin, disobedience, hard circumstances, and heartache.

I'm so grateful for that reminder today because it hasn't been the easiest week, and grateful that it's a reminder I'll have again and again in the upcoming weeks and months whenever I say it.  There can be great value in repetition, when married with a thoughtful heart that pays attention to what's being said.

"Robin, I know the plans I have for you.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Thanks be to God.

"Robin, in this world, you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world."

Thanks be to God.

"Robin, you are to have no other gods before me."

Thanks be to God.

"Robin, I will never leave you or forsake you."

Thanks be to God.

"Robin, blessed are you when people say all kinds of evil about you on account of me."

Thanks be to God.

"Robin, I am near to the brokenhearted and I defend those who are crushed in spirit."

Thanks be to God.

"Robin, I have called you by name and you are mine. When you walk through the fire you will not be burned and when the rushing waters surround you, you will not be swept away."

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.