Well said,....Jesus

I am always really excited when I hear or read a quote or song lyric that is well-written and thought-provoking. My favorite artists are Jars of Clay and Caedmons Call, because of their music but also because of their way with words. I love when people can somehow speak of something, whether ordinary or extraordinary, in a unique way, and I especially like when I can relate well to what they've said. When I'm reading books, I always have my eye open for that quote that says beautifully what I can only say commonly.

I don't often approach scripture with that same eye. The Bible is the Word of God, and I certainly seek to submit myself to it, come humbly before it to learn of my God, and apply its truths to my life. But I think what I lack many times is that freshness with which I approach new songs, new books. I've read every word in the Bible before, and while I truly believe that I can learn something new each time I open its pages, the sinful part of me can almost become casual in my reading of it because it isn't new to me.

My small group at church has just started going through the gospels, and this danger is greatest here. So many of the stories of Jesus have become very familiar even to those who don't have a relationship with Him or regularly read His word. And for those of us in a Bible-teaching church, this familiarity is even greater.

Today, though, God graciously opened my eyes to His own words, the words of Jesus, some very familiar words of Jesus, and I saw them as if for the first time. I read them and thought, "what a great quote! That speaks to my condition! That says in a beautiful way what I could only say commonly! The words were these:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock." - Matthew 7:24-25

A"nd the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house..." How exhausting!! How real! What a true statement about my condition, and what a calming reassurance - "It had been founded on the rock."

Reading on in Matthew, I see that I was not the only one moved by these words. The crowds were astonished, too, because they saw that he had authority. Obviously, these words take an a far greater weight than Jars of Clay, Caedmons Call, or my favorite authors' words do. The Creator of the universe, the Almighty God spoke them! And he spoke them well!

The uncertainties of my life have been burdensome this week, and it's easy to question a great many things. I can feel that rain, those floods, those winds...but I can also feel that rock. By His grace, this house will not fall.

Look out, Arizona!

As usual, lots of stuff on my mind, but this is another one of those days where I don't feel quite ready to write any of it out. So I'll opt instead for what made me laugh today...

Our weather has been really warm lately, up in the eighties most of the week and coming close to record heat for this time of year. It's gotten a little bit ridiculous - many of us girls were wearing tank tops at some friends' house last night and the fan was running, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I don't mind terribly, and LOVE the ability to be out and about outside when much of the country is icy and snowy. I walked to a coffee shop this morning in a short-sleeved shirt, jeans, and flip-flops and ordered my customary iced mocha while cooling off from my walk. Such is the life of a Phoenician. I do remember fondly my time living in New York, where checking the weather was important - figuring out if it was supposed to snow and how much, preparing for possible snow days and altered schedules and leaving extra time to drive on icy streets. Checking the weather here is not usually quite as crucial but I do it anyway.

So today I got on weather.com and was surprised to see a "special weather comment" under the "local weather alert" heading for the greater Phoenix area. I read the following:

A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE OVERALL WEATHER PATTERN WILL TAKE PLACE BY THE MIDDLE OF THIS NEW WEEK. A SERIES OF LOW PRESSURE SYSTEMS WILL... GIVE US AN INCREASING CHANCE OF RAINFALL.

ALTHOUGH THE EXACT TIMING OF THE MAIN PRECIPITATION EVENT IS STILL UNCLEAR AT PRESENT... IT APPEARS LIKE WEDNESDAY INTO THANKSGIVING DAY APPEAR TO HAVE THE BEST CHANCES FOR SIGNIFICANT RAIN... WITH ANOTHER THREAT OF RAINFALL BY THE WEEKEND. IN ADDITION... IT WILL TURN QUITE A BIT COOLER... WITH MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES BY THANKSGIVING DAY EXPECTED TO BE ONLY IN THE UPPER 60S TO LOWER 70S IN THE WARMEST DESERTS.

I literally laughed out loud. I love how they call it a "main precipitation event" and how the great climax of the warning is that by Thanksgiving, temperatures may only be in the 60s and 70s. BRRR! Will we ever be able to handle being only 40 degrees warmer than the rest of the country?? It's like someone at the weather service felt bad for us over here because we never get any weather warnings, and they gave us one and made it sound as ominous as such pleasant weather can sound.

Ok, well maybe my next post will be a little more profound...

Te iubesc, O Domnul meu...

This is one of those nights where I am thinking about a great many things, but I'll try to focus in on one theme and get to a coherent point...

Yesterday, I went with some friends to a homeless shelter in downtown Phoenix. We gave burritos to people and talked to them about God. Some conversations were better than others, but one was particularly intriguing. When asked what he knew about the gospel, this guy responded that most churches are not teaching people the basics. I had certain assumptions about where he was going with this and thought this might be a point of agreement (I think many churches do NOT teach people the basics). I was thrown for a loop when he said, "For instance, the letter J..." He went on to talk about the fact that Jesus' name in the original language is not Jesus at all, that the letter J didn't come into existence until 500 years ago, and that if we are praying to Jesus, our prayers will not be answered because that is not His name. No matter what we said, it was clear that he was stuck on this point. I was blown away. To me, it is so obvious that a God who intends to call some from every tribe, tongue, and nation, would not be bothered by a language "barrier," clearly not a barrier to Him. I even expressed to this man my own joy at being called a Romanian version of my name while in Romania - that this in no way changed who I was but seemed to immerse me more deeply into the culture I was in. This man's mind was unchanged, however, and he begged us NOT to pray for him when we finally walked away.

Tonight, I went to Apele Vii - the Romanian church I attend a couple times a month. I was very encouraged by every part of the service and thrilled that despite an exhausting day I was able to follow the Romanian sermon more successfully than usual. The part that most affected my heart, though, was while we were singing. It was a song in Romanian that I didn't know but mostly understood. The last line, which we sang repeatedly, was "Te iubesc, O Domnul meu," which means, "I love you, O my Lord." I was struck by the miracle that it is that I can sing those words, for several reasons. First of all, I was born a sinner and was incapable of loving God. He rescued me from my pursuit of sin and ultimately of hell, and he gave me a heart that is now able to love Him. Secondly, he is MY Lord. What right have I do have any sort of claim on the creator of the universe, a perfectly holy and righteous God? Only the right given me by the death of Christ on the cross, as he bore the wrath of God on my behalf so that I could be called His child. And on top of all of that, I am able to address Him as Domnul and know that the Lord hears my voice, understands that name, and responds to that worship. And I can know that those same things were true earlier in the day, when I praised Him in English. He doesn't only identify with blood descendants of Abraham, He doesn't only identify Himself as a God of the Hebrews and respond only to a Hebrew name. Instead, an American, English-speaking girl is able to worship Him alongside Romanian believers, and to have confidence that the blood that was spilt was not spilt for only one people group and was not affected by the creation of the letter J. Praise God!

Archive: October 17th, 2008

If I wrote a book...

I think I would love to write a book one day. My roommate Pam has the same thought, and lately we've been "authoring" together. I don't really know what my book would be about if I wrote one but the other day I just started writing about a day at the cemetery. This then turned into the beginnings of the story of my grandparents' death and how it affected me, but the first page is my favorite. And if I write a book, and if it happens to be a story of my life, this might be in it. But for now it will just become a blog:
On the first day of fall each year, I go to the city cemetery in my hometown. Nothing to do with the changing weather – it doesn't change until at least October. But on the first day of fall in 1920, my grandmother was born. And in fall of 2003, she died. And so this is one of several landmarks during the year when I visit her grave, which she shares with my grandpa.
I'm not a person who believes in the mystical power of gravesites, or even in the dead looking down on me, or me having a chance to communicate with them while I'm there. But there is something about a cemetery. This one especially. It's not well-groomed really- not a manicured lawn dotted with perfectly sculpted monuments. It's old, and it has weeds sometimes, and it's right in the middle of a not-so-nice part of town. But I love it. Somehow, ironically, there is life there. People come there and they sit by the graves of their loved ones. Some bring chairs, some bring books, some plan for a whole day. And unless there's a funeral happening at the time, there isn't that innate sense that you need to be quiet. And some people put balloons at the graves, not just flowers. And Happy Halloween signs, and birthday cards…
But I digress. When I go to the cemetery, it's not for a long day of sitting. On this particular fall day, it's much too hot to stay long anyway. I park my car and wander, nodding my respects to funeral-goers nearby and starting my search for the grave. I always remember that it's just east of the entrance, and just north of a tree…but there are many trees and I always end up wandering. And then I find it, and I pause. Ingebrigtsen, Marjorie and Leonard. I'm here for both of them, really, it's just that the birthday is my grandma's. I make sure the ants won't be too bothersome, then I tidy up a bit. Other times, I've brought flowers, but today I didn't. I fluff out the fake flowers that someone else has brought before and turn my attention to the gravestone itself. It's dusty – the lawn has apparently been mowed recently and little grass clippings have settled all around. I brush off the big ones with my hand, but that doesn't take care of all the little bits that have landed in the engraving. My grandparents loved the Superstition Mountains – even moved here to Arizona because of them. They once had a cabin there that still fills the memories of everyone in the 2 generations above me. And so that was chosen as the design of their stone. A simple sketch of the outline of that dramatic desert mountain range, now filled with the tiniest bits of dead grass. I blow gently on each line to clear it, and then trace the names the same way. Now satisfied, I simply sit and think and pray. Not for a long time – these are thoughts and prayers that aren't as gut-wrenching now as they once were. Now when I go it is more to remind myself of those times before – of everything that happened in the fall of 2003, of the largely unscarred life I left behind, of the doubts I overcame, of the daily mercy of God sustaining and refreshing my soul, even while I was trying my hardest to walk away from Him. They are things that need to be remembered and cannot be forgotten, things that have shaped me into who I am. And I dare not ever forget that it was hard but that God was there. And that the story's not over yet and that God still has much to teach me.
I breathe my thanks to the God who was there, to the God who IS there. I breathe also a prayer for the family members who are still here, who still need the mercy of God to capture their hearts. And I pray that I would not grow weary. And I walk back to my car, as I watch the funeral-goers, and the lawn-chair-sitters, and I remember.

Archive: September 17th, 2008

Kids are amazing

After many weeks of not blogging, I finally have a night with both inspiration and time on my hands. I actually have a lot I want to write about, but first i'm just going to combine a few kid stories...
So I've started, in my plethora of free time, to volunteer with a tutoring club in South Phoenix. It's a really cool program and I wish I was able to committ more time and energy to it, but for now I'm just going a couple of times a month for less than an hour. Anyway, it takes place in a Habitat for Humanity neighborhood, so all of the kids live close. On Monday, my roommate Amanda and I went to walk a little girl home - I think she's 9. We asked a guy to go with us for safety, and he came along but said the neighborhood wasn't anything to worry about. To which the little girl very nonchalantly answered, "There are drive-bys sometimes." She went on to tell us that the last time there was a drive-by, she got sick and had to stay home from school. Turns out she was so scared from the experience that she threw up. The part that really broke my heart though was what followed. She said, "usually when there's drive-bys, I sleep through them." No little girl should be able to start a sentence with that preface - "usually when there's drive-bys." And she didn't say anything in a way that invited pity or attention - she was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing and seems to be a happy, well-adjusted little girl despite the terror that regularly plagues her neighborhood.
Another awesome kid: one of my music therapy kids. This kid is 12 years old and has autism. You'd never know it to see him, talk to him, etc. - I only believe the diagnosis based on reports from his parents. Anyway, he is one of the coolest kids i know. He's got all sorts of interests and seems to really care about people. Case in point: He just told me today that he's come up with a fundraising idea for his local YMCA, where he spends hours on end volunteering each week. His idea is a basketball shoot-a-thon, and he wants to invite other kids with autism to participate. It is so rare for any 12-year-old kid to take this kind of initiative in helping other people, and his placement on the autism spectrum only points to the fact that the autism spectrum is full of kids who are wrongly stereotyped all the time.
My third kid story deals with several different kids but more so with my thought processes. It may not seem like a kid story at first, but wait for it...Ok, so I've gotten caught up in the personal lives of politicians these last few weeks, along with many other millions of Americans I'm sure. And I'll admit to having googled Trig Palin, Sarah's youngest son, who has Down Syndrome. And in this process, I saw a link to an article that claimed that 90 to 95% of pregnancies in the U.S. with a Down Syndrome diagnosis are aborted. My heart breaks over so many lives lost. It also breaks because of the huge number of families that have missed out on a blessing. I'm not even going to begin to suggest that parenting a child with Down Syndrome would be easy - it would be full of challenges to be sure. But I've experienced such profound joy in my interactions with kids with DS. Challenges, yes, but so much joy. And that sickening statistic has made me so much more thankful for the 6 kids with DS that I get to make music with every week, whose parents either were ignorant of their diagnosis or were willing to let their baby live despite it.
Today 2 of those kids in particular made me smile. My 3-year-old ran up to me (she couldn't walk at all when I first met her!) and hugged me with a huge smile on her face before we'd even gotten started. Partway through the session, she made a game out of this, walking away, then quickly walk-running back for a hug, repeatedly. She's talking up a storm these days, which is so exciting, and you should see her with a microphone! We sang our hearts out together for 10 minutes straight.
My 9-year-old has been a big challenge for several months. If she doesn't want to make music, she will make that perfectly clear, and she has stumped me more than once. But today, we had this terrific momentum that just didn't stop for the whole hour. We danced, we sang, we played, we laughed...and after I'd sung goodbye to her, she promptly turned my keyboard back on, grabbed the microphone, and sang another verse.
These kids are amazing too - and by the grace of God, they're alive! I find myself amazed afresh today at the beauty and grace of these little lives.

Archive: August 15th, 2008

some New York moments

I was going to blog about my new york trip, but now it's been so long and there is too much to say. But I keep having flashbacks to certain moments there, and those are what I'd like to share the most. 2 for now:
I spent Sunday with a family from the church I attended out in Ulster County. This family has 7 kids and lives in a cute little house in the country. They also live across the street from family friends who have a farm and a huge plot of land, so they spend much of their day on the farm, roaming about shoeless and doing all sorts of things that country kids do. I got to join them for this roaming for a day and very much felt like I'd been transported to another era. We fed the cows, climbed in hay, ate veggies straight off the field (yes, even me!), etc. But that's beside the point:
When I first saw the kids on Sunday morning, I told them that I was excited to see NY so green, because it hadn't been so green when I left (early March) and because it isn't so green where I live. Several hours later, I was sitting on the swing set with the oldest daughter, Lauren, who's 7. We were looking towards their gorgeous view from their yard – mountains in the distance and nothing but green. Lauren turned to me and said, "is it so pretty here?" to which of course I responded yes. I told her that we have mountains where I live too, and that they're pretty also but very different because they're brown instead of green. I also said that I don't see them as often because I live in the city and it's hard to see them well. She said, "That's very sad." Not in at all a rude way, just in a very honest way, a sad way really. I agreed that it was sad, and she invited me to go sit on a hay bale with her, because she said this was the best place to see the mountains. How could I turn down an invitation like that? We sat on the hay bale together, looking at the mountains, and she told me that she'd found that spot all by herself but that she'd told her whole family now so everyone knew. I loved this moment. In a family of 9, she had found a perfect spot to get away, but she didn't keep even that to herself.
The other moment I keep thinking of actually happened earlier in the weekend. My official reason for being back in NY in the first place was for an intern reunion that went from Friday to Saturday. The music therapy team, past and present, plus some friends and relatives, put on a concert for the residents of the place where our internship took place. I didn't get to see many of the individuals I saw for therapy last year, but I did have a couple precious reunions. The only adult that I had sessions with 1:1 was getting off her bus from her group home for the concert, saw me, and burst into the most infectious smile. We hugged, she kissed my cheek, we talked briefly, and I had to rush off to lunch. During the concert, though, I made eye contact with her time after time while I sang. The last song we did was "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Prepare for me to be super cheesy, but I almost cried singing this song to the people there. My internship was such a hard time for me for many reasons, but when all was said and done, I left having developed really meaningful relationships on top of accomplishing my degree. To be back there in that beautiful place, singing to these amazing people who I was blessed to get to know, was pretty incredible. Singing that nothing could keep me from them seemed pretty true. Over a year later and thousands of miles traveled, I was back again. What a huge blessing to revisit that part of my past, with such a deep appreciation for all that I experienced there and for how far I've come since then.

Archive: July 25th, 2008

New York...

I'm going to New York next week, and God's timing couldn't be more perfect, for several reasons:
My patience with the kids has been wearing thin the last week or so - I find myself getting frustrated with all the little things - some they can control and some they can't. Burnout is such a strong possibility in jobs like this one, but I think a week away will be a real help.
My future is still so up in the air, at least from my perspective, and that is what I find myself thinking on much too often. A break in my routine will give me different things to think about...and along with that the blessed ability to NOT think about that for awhile.
All the people I get to spend time with are people that I think will be refreshing to my soul in one way or another...i may say more about that later.
And then there's New York itself- something about the calmness of my tiny little town, and something about that infectious excitement of the city itself...I think both will be like a breath of fresh air for me.
My week will start with flying into the city on a red-eye flight and arriving early Thursday morning. A whole day in the city with nothing planned, probably hanging out with my friend Amber. Then I'll take the train (and I LOVE this train!) into Middletown. My friend Lindsay, who was an intern with me, will pick me up there on her way to Monticello from Indiana, and we'll stay with our other ex-roommate Amanda at her apartment in Monticello. I have no doubt there will be a lot of laughter and craziness - and probably some pretty memorable quotes. :-)
The official intern reunion is from Friday to Saturday at the Center for Discovery. I'll get to return to the place where so much soul-searching happened for me, where I felt knocked down in so many ways but from where I eventually emerged as a professional with so many amazing experiences under my belt. I'll see some of the music therapists there and hopefully a lot of the residents that I worked with. And we'll be putting on a concert on Saturday, which should be a fun adventure.
Sunday I'll say a sad farewell to my music therapy friends and meet up with a family from the church I attended there. They're picking me up to take me to church with them, then I'll spend the day and night with their fabulously fun and huge family - 7 kids!! These kids had so much fun introducing me to fun things to do in the snow while I was there, and I'm eager to see what the country life has in store for me in the summer. The whole family was a huge encouragement to me while I lived there and I'm so glad we're going to reconnect.
Monday I go to the city again. I'll go whenever my friends can get me to the train station, hopefully meet up with Amber, and spend another day just enjoying everything that NYC has to offer. In the evening, I'm meeting my friends Mo Bing and Cathy, who went to Romania with me. They've both been back there more than once since we came back last spring, which I can't help but be jealous of, but which will also be fun to hear about. And I'm excited to get their input on my whole situation - they love Romania almost as much as I do and are also older and wiser than I am so may be able to help me look at things in a new way. I get to spend the night at Mo Bing's apartment in Chinatown, which I'm really excited about, too.
Tuesday is another up-in-the-air day. Bumming around the city some more...one of my favorite things in life. I'll spend the night at Amber's fantastic house in Brooklyn.
Wednesday Amber is actually flying home to Phoenix before I am, and I'll have the day to myself I think. I'm torn between exploring parts of the city I don't know very well and going to my old favorite spots. I do know that Central Park is a must and could see myself spending the entire day there, with coffee and a book and a journal and my watchful eyes taking in all the sights and processing life. I'm kinda up for anything.
At some point that afternoon I have to find my way to Newark to fly home. Praise God I have many things to look forward to once I get home also - I know it will be hard to leave but at least not impossible.
This was a really long blog and maybe only interesting to me...so if anyone read this far...I'm flattered. :-)