An Interesting Week in Heaven

My Uncle Butch died peacefully last Wednesday evening. Shortly after Cousin Sylvia stood beside his bed and sang "I'll Fly Away," he slipped into the presence of the Lord. I've been wanting to say something about this for over a week now, but I haven't been exactly sure what to say. As you know from some of my previous posts, Uncle Butch was a larger than life character. We rehashed old stories and even told some new ones when we gathered for his burial earlier this week. Some of my favorites include:

The way he used to make my mom ride in the floorboard of his car when they were in high school because he didn't want other girls who might pull up next to him to think he had another chick in the car with him. This went on until Mimi pulled up next to them one day and asked him where his sister was, and Mom popped up smiling and said "here I am!"

There was the time Mimi was on her way home to punish all three siblings for misbehaving, but right before she got there, Butch his his head on a kitchen cabinet hard enough that it bled. When my mom tried to help him, he told her to leave him there, Mimi would feel sorry for him and forget she was mad a them. An hour later, cleaned up, and sitting at an ice cream parlor, he winked at my mom and said, "told ya so!"

And, then there was the night he borrowed Pappy's car for a date, and stayed out past curfew. He knew Pappy needed the car to get to work for his overnight shift, but once he knew he'd missed the deadline and was going to be in trouble, he decided to stay out all night and just have fun. Mimi tracked him down at his date's house watching movies with another couple at 2:00 a.m.!

Somehow, knowing all these stories and so many more, it seems fitting to me that my last phone call from Uncle Butch came just a week or so before his death. Up to the point that he got too weak to dial the phone, he'd been calling every other day or so just to tell me he loved me. I admit, there were times I wasn't sure I had time to answer the phone, but I was always afraid I'd miss his last call. Sure enough, I was sitting on the couch one afternoon at home, and he called. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello, what are you doing?
B: Who's this?
Me: You're favorite niece, Kristi, of course! (Sorry, Addie, Tiff, and Ava :-P)
B: Oh, I called the wrong person.
Me: (laughing) Well, good to talk to you, too.
B: Yeah, well, I love ya, bye.
Click. Silence. That was just his way.

I had a lot of valid disagreements with Uncle Butch when it came to politics and theology over the years, but in the days before his death, Uncle Tracey reported that he became very serious, made peace with many of the people he'd had contentions with, and told Tracey, "I'm ready to see Jesus." Through all of our laughter and tears ("Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion!"), I keep thinking, "I bet it's been an interesting week in Heaven."

I Thessalonians 4:13 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.

My Rock and My Refuge

I love you, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. Psalm 18:1-2

The problem with treating God like a polite acquaintance rather than the loving Father that He is becomes glaringly obvious to me when I read a passage like this one. This last week was not an easy one. I experienced loss and grief, fear, and disappointment. Thursday morning, as I woke, still processing Uncle Butch's death the night before, God who is rich in mercy and abounding in love allowed me to crawl into the place I meet with Him, open His Word, written to show me who He is in times like these, and read Psalm 18:1-2. Who is He?

My strength, so good to know when I am very, very weak.
My rock. This always makes me picture one of those giant boulders in some National Park that people go up and push against and take pictures with as though they're holding it up, when in reality, they could push with all their might and that massive rock isn't going to budge. There is great comfort for me in knowing that no matter how hard I push against My Rock, He does not move. He stands, unchanging, constant.
My fortress, a place of protection and defense in the midst of a raging battle.
My deliverer. I am free. I am free to experience all that life has for me, knowing that I am slave to none of it. He has set me free.
My refuge, shelter in the storm, a safe place.
My shield, my first line of defense, extinguishing the flaming arrows of my enemies.
My horn of salvation, trumpeting victory before the battles even get started.
My stronghold. When discussing sin, a stronghold is a negative thing, the place that Satan seems to have the advantage in our lives, but when talking about God, this is the best news possible. He's got me, and He will never let go.

No Shortcuts

I am the queen of shortcuts. If there's a way to do it faster, more efficiently, I wanna find it. I do not believe in wasting time. If I can multi-task, I'm gonna. If I can carry it in one trip, you'd better believe I'm not making two. Some people say it's because I'm a hard worker, but really, it's because I like free time. I like being able to play on the computer, or veg in front of NCIS reruns, or enjoy a spontaneous night of fun with friends. But, those things are really only enjoyable when I know my work is done.

The problem with this overall attitude toward life comes in to play when whenever a matter requires discipline. There are no shortcuts for sound discipline in life. There are no shortcuts to a healthy body. There are no shortcuts to a well-fed mind. There are no shortcuts to a life of integrity. There are no shortcuts to a Spirit-filled life. We must do the work to gain the prize.

This week, our church studied Ezra 3, and the story of the laying of the foundation for the rebuilding of the temple, and I was reminded of a vision the Lord gave me several years ago. It was during a season of great loss in my life. I had experienced loss through death, loss through broken relationship, and loss through physical distance over and over again in the span of a few short months. My spirit felt stripped and barren. During that time, I was lying in bed, working on the courage to face that day, when the Lord painted a picture for me of a foundation slab. Cold. Gray. Boring. Straight. Solid. Firm. Unshakable.

It was as though He was showing me that He had to strip my life down to the barest essentials, show me how solid my foundation in Him was, so that He could begin building other things into my life atop that. Last week, someone was talking to me about ways that we, as humans, tend to hide from the things we'd rather not face. She listed shopping, eating, busyness, work, etc. And, somewhere in the middle of all that she listed "religion." I think I know what she meant, but everything in my cried out against that at the same time. You see, I confess, I've been known to treat myself to a little retail therapy or brownie therapy, to book my calendar in such a way that there wasn't time to think about anything that might hurt, or to lose myself in work in such a way that made me unavailable to others. But, what she called "religion," my relationship with Jesus Christ, is no game. When all else is stripped away, He remains, faithful. I have searched the depths and found Him there.

All of those other things, those are shortcuts. And, every so often, because of His great love for me, He blows through my life with gale force, sweeping away anything not securely fastened to that Foundation. Sometimes, there's very little left. Oh, but even in those times, He is enough.

In this new season of my life, a new year, a new decade of life, the seeds of a new ministry being planted in my heart, I am increasingly committed to not taking shortcuts. As I build, I want to do it slowly, carefully, making sure that every structure is securely fastened to my immutable Savior.

The Love Mix

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite "love" songs ...

Loving You, Loving Me - Dave Barnes
What If I Loved You - Joey Gian
Love Love - Brett Younker
Never Been Unloved (Bruce's Song) - Michael W. Smith
Unfailing Love - Chris Tomlin
But I Do Love You - Leanne Rimes
Bold As Love - John Mayer
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) - James Taylor
Love You Out Loud - Rascal Flatts
Lead of Love - Caedmon's Call
We Love You, Jesus (Acoustic Version) - Shane and Shane
Your Love Is Extravagant - Darrell Evans

Memories!

So, I've already reached an age when it seems like taking a trip down memory lane to get together with long lost college friends. But, last night, I had the opportunity to reach even further back in my personal history and sit down to dinner with long, lost high school friends!
Thanks to the magic of facebook, I have recently reconnected with a sweet friend from my past, and last night was what I hope turns out to be the first of many opportunities to reconnect.
Some of my earliest happy memories of life in Plano start with Brenna and Lauren. Throughout junior high and high school, these were the girls who were with me for every major event, and all of the minor ones, too ... camps, cars, crushes, d-nows, dances, choir tours, sleep overs ... all of the highs and lows the teen years had to offer!
Last night was like having the opportunity to peer backwards in time. Laughter, facial expressions, catch phrases all came rushing back. Names and events I hadn't thought about in years were suddenly on the tip of my tongue. So much has changed, but so many things have stayed the same.

Life By the Lyrics

"To starve is to feast/Less of me is more of Jesus" I Want It All, Shane and Shane

"All of my life/In every season/You are still God/I have a reason to sing/I have a reason to worship" Desert Song, Hillsong

"I'm haunted by my God/ who has the right/ to ask me, what/ by the nature of my rebellion/ I cannot give/So, I beg for You to move/I beg for you to move/I beg for you to break through" Beg, Shane and Shane

"He is a hurricane/I am a tree/Bent by His wind and His mercy" How He Loves Us, Kim Walker

"You love all of who I am with all of who You are" - You Are Good, Jenny Riddle

"If you say go, we will go. If you say stay, we will stay. If you say step out on the water, and they say it can't be done, we'll fix our eyes on you and we will come!" If You Say Go, Vineyard

"You come as You are/I come as I am/And grace covers shame" You Come As You Are, Watermark

"I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way that you love me, oh how you love me!" How He Loves Us, Kim Walker

When I was in college, my friends and I used to play a game called "youth group" during which we'd hold up pretend microphones and go around the circle making up very cliche fake "testimonies" as though it were the last night of youth camp. Most of us had grown up in typical churches and we all shared similar stories of such events. We'd follow that up with "prayer request" and start making up terrible fake prayer requests about great-aunt Bertha's fungus on her third toe and Suzy's sister-in-law's uncle who has a sick dog, etc. I'm not gonna lie, it was funny, and it still makes me laugh when I think about it.

But, I think it also gave me a complex about sharing prayer requests. Recently, I had something really heavy on my heart, effecting many people I love, but I hesitated to tell others about it because I didn't want to seem too needy. You see, lately, it seems like I've had an inordinate number of prayer requests for myself or those near me. As I was thinking about some of those things this morning and wondering how to share and with whom to share, I told the Lord that I didn't want to sound needy. And, y'all, like only He can, the response was immediate, "But, Kristen, you ARE needy." Where I got the idea that I wasn't in need or that it was wrong for me to be in need, I'll never know.

In need of grace, in need of love,
In need of mercy raining down from high above,
In need of strength, in need of peace,
In need of things that only You can give to me.
In need of Christ, the perfect Lamb, my refuge strong, The Great I Am.
This is my song, my humble plea; I am Your child, I am in need.

In Need by Ross King