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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Shards


I was in my closet when I felt a sharp pain in the bottom of my toe. I glanced down, but there was nothing there. I moved on and everything seemed fine. A few minutes later, there it was again -- a sudden, sharp stab of pain. This time I lifted my foot and ran my finger over the offending area. Owww! My finger brushed something, but the sudden return of pain made me pull my hand back before I isolated it. I glanced down again, but still couldn't see anything. I told Carl I must have something like a small splinter in my toe and I headed into a better lit room. I sat down on the floor under the light and looked closely. I STILL couldn't see anything. I called Carl. He couldn't see anything, either. We used a high-power flashlight, moving my toe every direction. Still nothing. He put his finger over it... OWWW! Yes, he felt it, but he couldn't see it. For just a second, with his finger resting lightly on it, I thought I saw a flash of something.... but then it was gone. No, not gone -- it was still there, causing pain when touched (and only when touched)... but there was no visible sign of anything there. Hmmm....

How do you remove something you can't even see?

Carl then went out to get a lit, magnifying visor (imagine a jeweler). We kept the flashlight trained on the spot... and twisted my toe every direction to get just a glimpse of a glare off of what we were now assuming was a tiny sliver of glass. Finally... Finally he saw it and he reached for the tweezers. I have to admit I questioned him. How on earth would tweezers work on something that he could hardly see (and I couldn't see at all!). He said nothing, simply moved into position... slowly squeezed the tweezers shut... and pulled. I felt something... then, very cautiously running my finger over the area, I discovered whatever HAD been there... was gone - no more pain. :) With the visor still on, Carl held the tweezers over the palm of his hand and looked at them. I couldn't believe it, but we STILL couldn't see the offending sliver. It was so tiny we couldn't even see it when removed. But for something so incredibly tiny, it sure made its presence known!

So... the million-dollar question? Where did it come from? Okay, so now I have to admit that last week was not a good week in my kitchen... Wednesday I broke a Corelle bowl. It takes a lot to break one of those, but dropping it on tile does produce quite an impressive shatter. It was Thursday when I dropped a glass cake dome. That, too, shattered quite nicely when it hit the tile... with quite a nice spread pattern. We started the cleanup with the broom and dustpan. Then Carl pulled out the shop vac and went over the kitchen several times with it. We thought we had the mess cleaned up. But somehow, somewhere... one teeny, tiny shard of glass... so tiny we couldn't see it... escaped. And much later... when it worked its way into just the right spot... it hurt!

So.. I have to tell you -- my closet is a long way from the kitchen. From the kitchen you go through the living room, a short hallway of sorts, through my bedroom, all the way across my bathroom and finally into the closet. I have no idea how that tiny irritant ended up in my closet. It was far removed from the original scene. If we hadn't caught, for just a moment, the gleam of the glass shard, we would have never known what was causing the pain. Without the physical evidence I would have never connected my kitchen experience with my later closet experience. So now I wonder....

How often do we work to clean up the messes of our lives... so sure we've got it all under control again... only to much, much later... in a much different place, even... suddenly feel a stab of pain that we have no idea where it came from?

I'll admit that every once in awhile something causes a reaction in me that seems unmatched to the actual circumstances. Sometimes, I'll turn just the right way and something penetrates... a sight, maybe even a scent, a word or thought, sometimes I won't even know what caused it... but something gets a reaction. Could it be a shard from a mess I thought we had cleaned up? And how do you fix something you can't even see? Hmmm...

Thoughts? Leave a comment and share them! :)

-jenn


Saturday, April 25, 2009

Perspective


Our family took a trip around the western US last summer and one of our stops was at the Grand Tetons. I hadn't been there since I was on a family vacation with my parents and sister as a kid. The Tetons made an impression on me then. They did again last summer.


I love the Rockies… but there’s just something about the rugged beauty of the Tetons that makes them my favorite mountain range to view. They continued to take my breath away all day. Around every bend, every new perspective, it seemed my heart would just stop. I spent the entire day in awe and wonder at creation... and the Creator.

Many of the sights we saw last summer only served to confirm my belief that God didn’t just create us and leave the scene... and He doesn’t just sit from on high somewhere. Think about it--
the beauty and majesty of these mountains would be completely lost from the heavensyet look at what He created…. He had to have seen it from our perspective or why bother…???

Actually... I believe that He sees it through our eyes each and every day....

-jenn

P.S. The blog of our 2008 vacation can be found here.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Abandoned -- Not


It was Good Friday... The message in our evening service was based on the seven statements of Jesus during his crucifixion. One struck my heart like never before...
Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mark 15:34)
Abandoned. In everything he'd faced, he'd felt his Father's presence there with him. It was the most intimate relationship he had. An ongoing conversation and source of love, support, strength, even approval ("This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."). Now it was gone. All of it. He was... for the first time in all eternity... alone... Abandoned. The physical pain he accepted. He commented he was thirsty, but we have no record of complaint regarding his pain. This emotional pain, however, was intense enough it provoked a response: a heart-wrenching cry of "why?" Christ, in that moment, experienced something he had never felt before: Separation from his Father.

And... in that moment... Christ experienced something I have never felt. Something I will never have to. Abandoned -- not. Even in those times when I may feel far from the God who loves me... even in those times I may feel alone... abandoned... I will never, ever, truly feel that deep black hole of total abandonment. I will never know what that truly feels like. Because of Jesus, God doesn't have to turn away from me. Because of Jesus, He can fix his gaze on me and never look away. Even before I chose Him, He was there, waiting. Even when I turn away from Him, He has his gaze fixed on me. He's there. Every second of every day. I can choose not to listen, I can choose not to look, but I will never experience abandonment. Never. Jesus did. It was the one thing which made him cry out. And if Christ, knowing what was coming, still cried out at the separation... how could I have ever faced it?

Eloi, Eloi, thank Eloi, I will never be abandoned....

-jenn

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Something to Say

I bought this CD by Matthew West after I heard "The Motions" on the radio. "The Motions" challenged me... pushed me... I wanted the passion back... to not just be going through the motions of Christianity. But the title track, "Something to Say," has also been working on me....
You got something to say
If you’re livin’, if you’re breathin’
You got something to say
And you know if your heart is beatin’
You got something to say
And no one can say it like you do
God is love and love speaks through you
You got it, you got it
You got something to say
As the song started tugging on me, I wrote on my Facebook status:
Jenn is wondering... if she's got something to say... why doesn't she have the faintest clue what it is?
And the more time I've spent at His feet... the more that song keeps coming back at me... I hear it when it's not playing... I feel it resonating inside me... Sitting in a Dave Ramsey lesson which concentrated on finding your strengths and what God made you for... I thought I heard... uh huh... "something to say...?"

Yes, I think I'm feeling God's hand... but I'm not at all sure what it all means yet. What DO I have to say? I don't know. I know I feel totally unqualified to say much of anything. I don't have the imagination or creativity for a novel. I don't have the education or maturity for non-fiction. So... here I am blogging... trying to find... My Something to Say.
Listen up, I got a question here
Would anybody miss you if you disappeared?
Well your life is the song that you sing
And the whole wide world is listening
Well the answer to the question is
You were created, your life is a gift and
The lights are shining on you today, ‘cause
You got something to say
-jenn