Autumn Color

This time of year the leaves of the aspen trees that dominate the Colorado high country near my home change to brilliant gold.
The color lies hidden within the leaf all summer. When shorter days and cooler temperatures cause photosynthesis to cease, the green fades and the underlying color shines through brilliantly.

It is the same in my soul. When the days in my inner world grow shorter, and the green begins to fade, shifting from summer’s bloom to fall’s dying, I am always disappointed. I react as if something unexpected is happening. These difficult seasons are necessary though. They strip away pretense so that the core of my being, the beautiful redeemed part can shine through.

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24


 As winter approaches each year, I like to watch our large maple in the backyard begin to lose its covering of summer green and take on a funereal brown. As the leaves drop, one by one all of the irregularities and defects of the tree are exposed. The imperfections are always there, of course, but they have been hidden from my view by an emerald blanket. Now, however, it is denuded and desolate, and I can see its real condition. Winter preserves and strengthens a tree. Rather than expending its strength on the exterior surface, its sap is forced deeper and deeper into its interior depth. In winter a tougher, more resilient life is firmly established. Winter is necessary for the tree to survive and flourish.  -- Richard Foster, Prayer

Crushed, Beaten and Threshed

Dill is beaten out with a stick and cumin with a rod.  Grain is crushed for bread; he will surely thresh it, but not forever. (Isaiah 28:27b - 28 ESV)

My family loves to drink homemade chai. Loose leaf tea, water, lots of milk boil happily together on the stove, with one other key ingredient, cardamom. We take a few grains of the cardamom throw them in the mortar and crush them firmly with a pestle. Not much different, I imagine, than the way people have been preparing this spice for thousands of years. As the spicy aroma fills the air we toss the crushed grains into the pot and their delicious flavor infuses the whole brew.

Isaiah 28 uses spices and grains as an extended metaphor of God's work in our lives. Can't you just smell the dusty scent as it describes dill, cumin and wheat being prepared for use? In a couple of poetic verses, Isaiah outlines the ancient processes for preparing spices. Each spice or grain demands unique handling. Each spice or grain must be crushed, ground, beaten or threshed. For some, the process of taking it from raw grain to a substance ready to fill a kitchen with nourishing flavors, requires much patience.

I would like to say that the relational aroma of my chai spiced kitchen is always warm and spicy, enticing and delicious, but it is not. Now several years into our life as a step family we have yet to become the beautiful unified family I envisioned before the wedding. The day each week when my step kids transition from their mother's home to ours is almost always tense and difficult. They are cold, angry, rejecting, and distant. Hurt wells up in me unbidden, like some toxic waste of the soul. Conflicts are frequent and not always constructive.

I long for a perfect home where geraniums bloom, blue birds sing on the windowsills,  and honest warmth abounds. But although am am married to a terrific man, the perfect home of my imagination is still in the realm of myth. Life on this side of heaven involves hard times, conflict, and crushing pain. I often feel like I am the cardamom in the mortar and pestle. Crushed.

During such times, when hope is illusive. It helps me to remember two things: 1. the process of crushing doesn't last forever, and 2. the crushing is happening for a good purpose under the hand of my gracious God. He is releasing the flavor and aroma he planted deep in my being, preparing me for the delicious future he has planned from the beginning for me.

When I remember that, I can rest, sipping my chai, and waiting for the day when my time in the mortar and pestle will be complete.

Tales of the Restoration: The Hidden Reality

Nehemiah 2:8

The cacophony chatters, rings, confuses,
What Good comes of taking all these bruises?
Grasping Hand-holds in the hardened cliff
Slipping stones Of sadness, oh faithless heart, what if?
Reality deceiving, My senses false, but
Gaze at unseen things, God sings silent melodies
Texture of the immaterial; Is that the scent of You?
What whisper hidden, rode Upon the wind?
                                          Touch Me!

Road Construction, Preparing the Way of the Lord

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'
Luke 3:4-6

 The day after Christmas I took a walk down a twisting little dirt path near my home. The path winds through an open field where tall grass grows and the Colorado foothills and high mountain peaks frame a magnificent view to the west. As I walked, I listened to my favorite jazz/gospel version of The Messiah. As I listened to the triumphant sounds of the song about a voice crying in the wilderness my soul filled with gratitude. 

"Wilderness" and "desert" are my favorite metaphors for difficult seasons in life. We all have them. No one exits this world without experiencing some pain. Though difficult, seasons of life spent in the wilderness can be gifts in disguise. 

As I walked and sang along with The Messiah I realized that for me, time in the wilderness prepared the way of the Lord for me.  God has done so much road construction in me. He chose to prepare the way for himself through the desolate wilderness of divorce and single parenting, and the rough places of step-parenting. And I am so grateful that he has. Even if given the chance, I wouldn't trade the gift of intimacy with him he gives me in the wilderness for the easy life I had planned for myself.

I wish that "every valley shall be filled and ... the rough places shall become level" meant removing all the pain and difficulty from my life. Unfortunately, I don't think that is what it means. That would contradict much other teaching in scripture. But he doesn't leave any of us desolate in the wilderness forever.  He speaks tenderly to us there. He plants vineyards and makes fountains and turns the wilderness into a oasis of hope.

As I walked along I couldn't help contrasting this Christmas to Christmases that have come before. I have spent many lonely Christmases, having kissed my kids goodbye on Christmas morning so that they could go celebrate with their dad. This year when my kids and step-kids were with their other parents, I treasured quiet moments with a handsome husband who loves me. For years, divorce seemed to have robbed me of the traditions that once made the holidays bright. This year, I celebrated with newer traditions my family and I have developed over the years. After my remarriage, the first holidays as a new blending family together were tense, we weren't all comfortable with the tremendous changes that followed putting two broken families together. This year, there was a lot of laughter and ease instead.

There is still have far to go, and I know that there will be more desert times along my path, but God is with me. He is so good to me. He speaks tenderly to me, and gives me vineyards in the desert and makes my valley of trouble a door of hope (from Hosea 2:15).

You Are Here

Lamentations 3:19 says, "Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me." 

During the journey through life we all encounter stretches that are full of "wormwood and gall". It is right and good to be realistic about this. Author Larry Crabb calls it "the red dot", like finding the "you are here" red dot on a map in a shopping mall. You have know where you are before you can find a route to where you need to go. Likewise, it is healthy to realistically assess your situation and honestly own your feelings about it. Some people try to skip this step. They usually waste a lot of time wandering around, not knowing exactly where they are or where they are going.

Once we have figured out where we are, it is time to intentionally move our attention to something, or rather someone else.

"but this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end..." Lamentations 3:21-22

We can focus on our own afflictions and wanderings, or we can focus on "the steadfast love of the Lord".

The need for forgiveness in particular seems to often keep us glued to the red dot. Some people rehearse the wrongs done to them over and over. They refuse to forgive. Other people rehearse the ways they have done wrong and refuse to forgive themselves. Either way, the focus on themselves, instead of on the "steadfast love of the Lord" keeps them glued to the red dot. 

"Hold not our sins against us,

but hold us up against our sins,

so that the thought of you

when it wakens in our soul

should not remind us of what we have committed,

but of what you did forgive,

not of how we went astray,

but of how you did save us."

Soren Kierkegaard

The Problem with Being in the Middle

In the story The Lord of the Rings Frodo and Sam, rather unremarkable small persons, find themselves at the heart of a quest to defeat evil and save the world. About two-thirds of the way through their journey they perch wearily on a narrow ledge overlooking the evil land of Mordor and discuss the state of things. They are alone; separated from  their strong friends. Both food and water are nearly gone. Their strength is failing. The destination is still distant, and the worst part of the journey lies ahead.  They have come too far to turn back, but there seems to be little chance that they will successfully complete their quest.

All good stories have a scene something like that in the middle.

I am pretty sure that all lives have a scene something like that in the middle too. We come to a time when the whole thing feels pointless, even hopeless.

Then we are tempted to quit, or at least to try to jump into a different story.

Frodo and Sam ultimately stand up and trudge on, because the quest is so much more important than the two of them.

Sometimes I make the mistake of thinking that my life is supposed to be about me. I want it to be a nice little story. I want it to have a beginning, middle, and end that all read "And she lived happily every after". But stories like that are very boring stories, and God doesn't write boring stories.

Our lives are part of a big story. The story has big themes. Its themes are about good and evil, the war over the ultimate fate of the universe, and a quest to put everything right again. I am a small and weak character caught up in this big story. You are too. The story is not really about us, but we are important in it.

If Frodo and Sam had laid down and died on that ledge, the Lord of the Rings would have come to a disappointing ending reading something like, "and evil triumphed and misery reigned ever after."

We can't lay down and give up in the middle of the struggle either. The fate of the universe does not hinge on you or on me, but we are part of a much bigger story. Even though we are small in the face of it, we matter. If we give up, we have strengthened the cause of the enemy. If, on the other hand, we muster the courage to trudge on, we might just get to see the triumph at the end.     

Wandering in the Desert

I remember my first adventure in the desert.  I was 17, shy, cautious, but with an inner thirst for adventure that drove me forward.  I was a Rocky Mountain girl reared among lush pines and crisp high altitude air.  I was afraid to meet the desert.  It was foreboding, unfriendly, and potentially deadly.

My friends and I backpacked for days through Big Bend National Park in south Texas.  We used compasses and maps to guide us.  We refilled our canteens with rank mosquito infested stale water, because it was the only water to be found and trusted to healthy doses of chlorine to preserve our lives while drinking it.   Then came the most dreaded part of the trip, the  24 hour 'solo'.  Our guides dropped us off individually, out of view from one another, and we were to spend 24 hours alone.  We were allowed a sleeping bag, water, and a journal.  That's it.

I was terrified.  I imagined poisonous spiders, scorpions and snakes gleefully swarming over me and feasting on my flesh.  I imagined the rest of the group moving on and forgetting about me, not remembering until my bleached bones laid exposed on my rotting sleeping bag that there had once been one more member of the group. 

Fortunately, my real solo experience was nothing like that.  I sat alone until the quiet of the desert sank into my soul.  My eyes began to see the beauty of the sandy colors.  My ears began to hear the desert melody.  God whispered in my ear.  I emerged from solo changed.  Unafraid.  Even in love with the harsh beauty of that place.

Life took me into a longer solo a few years later when the man I married at 19 years old began anesthetizing his own pain in the arms of other women.  Again I was terrified.  Again I thought I could never survive.  I was sure that no one before me had ever suffered pain so paralyzing and pervasive and lived to tell about it.  I desperately clung to the dream of the life I wanted to live and fled from the reality that lay before me.

Gradually though, a quiet voice calmed my soul.  He spoke to me.  He said "I allured you here, to this barren desert to woo you.  I wanted to draw you to a place where you could hear me speaking tenderly to you.  I have a vineyard full of sweetness growing for you, in the proper season.  This desert of trouble is your door of hope."   

I don't mean to say that it was instantly easy from that moment on.  The journey was still hot and dry and difficult.  The days when I had to concentrate on merely putting one foot in front of the other, strung together until I couldn't remember when they began.  But eventually, I found the vineyard, and learned to hear the voice of the God who loves me a bit more clearly.

During those desert days I prayed for someone to journey alongside me.  I would like to travel alongside you.  I would like to share more of my story and hear some of yours.  I would like to be a sign post pointing to hope ahead, no matter what the road you are traveling looks like. 

Ann