25 Days of Christmas Presence—Day 2

My husband and I spend a lot of time together because we enjoy each other’s company.

Our best times of communication happen when we are in each other’s presence. When I can see his face I understand far more.

Sometimes we misunderstand each other and must ask for more information to clarify. Sometimes we don’t hear each other because there is too much noise or too many distractions and we have to turn our ears to one another.

There are times when the volley of ideas and thoughts move between us rapid-fire. There are times when we sit in complete silence; it is a comfortable silence—one born of contentment and familiarity. There are times we are silent because there are not enough words or the right ones.

We talk about a myriad of topics. We laugh about nonsense—both of us entertained by the absurdity of the other. We discuss the thoughts we have pushed back into the crevices of our hearts. We examine the hard things that fray the edges of us. We share the hurts that pierce and discourage; we acknowledge the fears that torment.

This is a gift to me—this marital communication that crosses so many boundaries and perimeters.

This is a very good gift, but its ultimate purpose is to remind me of an even greater gift.

Prayer.

Prayer ushers us into the presence of God. Prayer throws open the throne room door. Wide. And we are encouraged to be bold and enter with no hesitancy or reluctance.**  Audaciously (not arrogantly) we are to come into God’s presence, before his face with petitions, thanksgiving and praise.

Like my communication with my husband honest, real prayer is born out of familiarity and intimacy. It is buoyed by laughter and rejoicing, marked by vulnerability and transparency. It is punctuated with raw angst and passion. It is laced with humility, seasoned with grace and fortified by love.

Let this Christmas season begin a new time of entering God’s presence through prayer. This is one of his greatest gifts to you.

Please don’t forget to open it.

Don’t try and save the wrapping paper. Don’t be tentative, just rip it open. There’s no need to be proper, and there is no completely right way to open this package. Just go before his face and come clean. Talk about anything and everything. Laugh and cry. Tell him what you love and what you fear. Ask him for clarification and request a repeat of instructions if you don’t understand the first time. Tell him how good he is. Thank him for Jesus. Ask him to take care of the people you love. And don’t be afraid to sit in silence with him. If you are in HIS presence the silence doesn’t bother him. Don’t make it hard; don’t make it a mystical, abstract event.




Father, we ask that you turn down the volume of the noise this season. Please shut the door on the cacophony so we can enjoy your presence and we can talk candidly. Help us to put aside our own awkwardness and timidity. Let there be an ongoing, underlying conversation in our hearts with you. Thank you for this incredible gift your presence gives. Amen.



**Hebrews 4:16 


Daily Activities: Visit  http://www.sacredspace.ie/
This Jesuit website will walk you through a time of guided prayer.


Christ Church of Winchester

25 Days of Christmas Presence—Day 1

I have two beautiful grandsons. They are very young; the oldest is three months old today. I am a silly doting Noni—my grandmother name. I participate in full-fledged conversations with these boys and answer for them if necessary. But I have learned something very important. I knew this truth with my daughters, but it seems to have become even more important and necessary with my grandsons because I don’t see them on a daily basis. They respond the most and best to me when they can see my face. When I interact with them I get my face very close to theirs. My face will be all they can see in their line of vision. My face is how they know I am present. Suddenly my face is my presence.

When these grandsons respond to my presence I am absolutely delighted. When they smile in recognition of my face I am beside myself—giddy. I want them to know me. My face and my voice are the best ways for that to be a reality right now.

Christmas is an interesting holiday. We long for it to be a holy season; we yearn for it to be a sacred time. It is often difficult, however, to keep the Reality at its core. In the midst of the commercial and retail chaos we struggle to focus on something other than the long lists, the unreal expectations, the overstretched finances, the unrealistic schedules and the dysfunctional families. Gifts become duties and obligations—stressors that trigger worry and pressure. Often we begin to wonder why we are even celebrating this holiday.

Even the Church can add to this stress. We shouldn’t, but often we do. We put pressure on the Body to experience Christmas as it should be, but there is only one should be.

Christmas should be about the Presence of God.

The word often used in the Old Testament for presence literally translates as the face. To be in God’s presence is to stand before his face.

Just as my grandsons know I am present because of my face, so we know the presence of God because of Jesus’ face. Jesus is Immanuel—God with us. In Jesus we see the face of God.

This Christmas, above all else, yearn to be in the Presence of God. Long to see his face. Ask to be able to recognize it even in the most unexpected of places.

And when you do recognize and respond to his face he will be delighted.



Father, come down to us. Bend to us and put your face in front of ours. May we be like babies and little children in our response to you. May our recognition of your face come quickly and increase daily. May the time we take to respond to you become immediate. And may we become aware of the gifts that will come in the wake of your Presence—and may these gifts change our reality this season. Amen.





Daily Activities: Read Luke 2:1-20
Watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas
Clip from the classic



This post is the first of a 25 day Christmas project that my church is sponsoring. This post is published on Christ Church of Winchester's Facebook page. We will be sharing thoughts and daily activities beginning today and ending on Christmas Day. I will post here, but I would love for you to check out our Church's website and Facebook page.

Christ Church of Winchester

Window Writing

Just this past week I met my oldest daughter and Olivia at a local coffee shop. This is where we meet when my day with Judah is at its end. I carried Judah into the shop and sat his car seat on the table and his sweet mama peered in at him and he smiled.

Then we went out to our cars to transfer the diaper bag and all the baby paraphernalia. When we got to our cars in the parking lot there was a young woman standing beside Olivia’s quirky little station wagon. She was taking photos of Olivia’s windows. We weren’t sure what was happening at first. But the young woman looked at Olivia and said: I hope you don’t mind. This is just too sweet; I had to take a picture. This is amazing.

Olivia then explained why and how the words had been written on her windows. I stood back and watched the whole interchange. And I smiled.

Two months ago my youngest daughter, Abby, wrote on her sister Olivia’s car windows. The youngest sister waited until third sister was at work and she snuck into the parking lot and wrote on the back and side windows of Olivia’s little quirky green station wagon. Abby made sure she left visual room to see to drive, but thick, large words covered the glass.

That day was Olivia’s nineteenth birthday. And little sister decided she wanted to do something to make this sister know how incredibly special she is.


Abby wrote words for the whole world to see. She did it publicly. She shouted the words.




Dear Oliva, I think you are gorgeous, funny




btw...you make awesome brownie batter
[you are] Awesome, brilliant and any other adjective you can think of...


The words are still there. Almost two months later the words remain on the windows. Olivia has not touched them, not even bothered or attempted to remove them. Even the rain has not changed them.

In a world, often gone wrong, I smiled that day in the coffee shop parking lot becaue I was a witness to the world going right. I inwardly rejoiced because those good words, kind words, encouraging words, loving and funny words not only blessed Olivia, but they touched someone else. They impacted someone else’s world so much that they too wanted to record it.

In the course of a day we do not understand how our words and actions affect and touch someone else. We are often unaware of how a kind and genuine word can be the one branch or twig that changes the flow and run of an otherwise out of control or a damned river.

I am not sure how long Olivia will let the words her sister wrote remain on her windows. My guess is as long as they do. I can’t see her taking a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels and wiping them away. I just don’t see that happening. It means too much to her. When Olivia looks out her windows now, she must look through those words. She will remember what her sister has said. When others (driving by, stopped at red lights, in parking lots) see those windows, they have to look through those words to see Olivia.

Why?

Because her sister wrote those words.

Someone who had lived with her. Someone who had seen the good, the bad and the ugly. Those words were written by someone she had argued with, gotten frustrated with and who had been frustrated with her, someone who knew how messy she kept her room, someone who knew her flaws and her failures. The person who wrote those words about Olivia knew her.

The words were not flattery. They came from a sister who wanted another sister to understand she was loved.

Sometimes our families are hard places. For whatever reason, sometimes they are just hard. Our families can be our point and place of refuge and safety or they can be the most frightening place in the world. Sometimes they can be both in one day.
Why?

Because families—our husbands, wives, daughters, sons, mothers, fathers—see the good, the bad and the ugly.

But on that day, on Olivia’s birthday, her sister declared to the world the good and the beautiful she saw and sees in Olivia.

Abby spoke to Olivia in a way that would be immediately seen and heard. She spoke in a way that would take an intentional act to remove.

And they have not been removed. Perhaps, they haven’t because those words help Olivia remember who she really is. They are visual reminders of an internal truth that often gets blurred or blocked by the world. Maybe, they haven’t been removed because they strengthen her resolve to continue to be that person—to continue to be and to become the words that are written on her windows.

Today, I ask you to write on someone’s windows. Remind them of who they really are. Point out the beautiful, the good and the real. Take the time to invest in someone’s assessment of themselves. Remember they are going to be looking back through those windows. And others will be looking at them through those windows.

Stop constantly pointing out the ugly. It’s easy to do that. Cease highlighting the bad. It’s not hard to find the bad. If you look for it you will find it. Oh, you will find it.

Instead, today look for the good. Some people have told me I am incredibly naïve for always looking for the good in people. Naïve? That implies I don’t have a clue that there is bad or ugly. Or that I choose not to see or acknowledge it.

Oh, I know bad. I know ugly. I have seen them both. Sometimes when I look in the mirror I see them staring blatantly and defiantly back at me. (At some point you have to learn to find the good and beautiful in yourself too.)

Therefore, today—today I am going to find the good and write it on the windows. I am going to find a big white wax crayon and write the truth so that the people around me have reminders of who they really are.

Abby did.

And blessed Olivia.

Their Mama is going to follow their example.

Who Are We Going to Be Today?

Your People are weeping, Lord.

I hear them crying. I hear them calling out and reaching out and screaming out for deliverance. Just like the Israelites of old—the Hebrew people caught in the snare of the Egyptian pharaoh.

They cried and wept for deliverance from their oppression. And you garnered the attention of your servant Moses through the burning branches of a desert bush. In a land where fire would be feared if out of control, for lack of water, you spoke through tongues of flame.

Father, your people are still crying. They are still weeping. They are still reaching. I hear them on a daily basis. I see the woundedness in their faces. I see the pain in their eyes. I hear their silent cries as if they were silent screams in my own head. I see the disease that ravages their bodies—spiritual and physical.

Yesterday I broke. In the early morning I wept hot, hard tears for your people. Crying from a frighteningly deep place. Sobbing for the brokenness, the illnesses and the diseases that plague your people.

All through the day I watched your people hurt. Wounded, wearied, worried, wracked people.

Lost. Lonely. Lacking.

Oh, Father.

Forgive me for ignoring them. Forgive me for turning my head and changing my path as the priest and the Levite did with the poor beaten man on the road. How often have I chosen to ignore my beaten brother or my robbed sister on the side of the road because it would require too much time or energy? How often have I neglected them because I was too busy with my own agenda and schedule and I squandered an opportunity to be a minister of your grace and mercy? How often have I not wanted to dirty my own hands for fear of association? How many times have I turned on selective hearing and tuned out the cries of people around me?

Even now my words are making me—us—uncomfortable. We don’t want to hear this. We don’t want to be reminded of our own accountability and like the Levite and the priest we justify what we do and don’t do. And we have valid justifications. But justifications are not always good. They may be right according to the law, but they may not be the good thing to do.

And when I ignore the pain and hurt around me, when I choose to not acknowledge the wounded places in people then I am behaving just as the priest and the Levite.

Oh, Father, today don’t allow me to selectively hear. Don’t allow me to walk on by the waylaid, the forlorn or the wounded. Don’t allow me to justify my own callousness, my own numbness.

Your people are crying, Father. And I know the Deliverer. Show me what to do. Give me the strength and the discernment and the wisdom to know what to do for your people. Don’t allow me to turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to the people you have intersect my path.

Not so long ago I was one of those wounded and forlorn people. I have not forgotten the ones who stopped for me. I remember the ones who stooped down and put their shoulders under mine and took me to a place of rest.

Our God has heard their weeping. He has heard their cries.

But the question is: Who are we going to be today?


The priest?


The Levite?


The Good Samaritan?

Thursday Morning Prayer

Father, these are long days of living. We are living right out in the moment. Father, you are asking me to just live in the daily demands of a life. But I seem to be floundering with my schedule and other things. There seems to be no pattern or rhythm. No daily sameness that helps me track—I am random.

But you, Father, are the pattern. You are to be the fixed point of the day. Remind me, remind us, that if our eyes stay on you, the roiling waves diminish in their power and the chaos will be tamed.

Father, I thank you. I bless you for so many things: for my car, my home, my job and all the people in it. I thank you for my friends and my family. I thank you for journals and worn out Bibles and friends who send new books in a genuine attempt to feed our souls.

Thank you for my salvation and the shed blood of Jesus that has covered us. This blood gains us entrance into your throne room. Thank you for Jesus’ example of how to live in that blood. Thank you for the Spirit who comes now to dwell in these temporary shelters of us. Thank you that he is our Counselor and reminds us of God’s grace.

Thank you for this Holy Spirit who speaks truth to us when the world is shouting enticing, but doomsday lies. Thank you for the conviction of this same Spirit to move us to be like Jesus.

Thank you that you are you, O God! You are incorruptible; you are unchangeable, immutable, unstoppable and infallible.

You are.

I thank you that you are always bringing us back to yourself. You always use the crook of your staff to return us to yourself and the path you are on.

I thank you for your Word which always feeds us, convicts us and changes us. It never leaves us untouched.

I thank you for your mercy and your grace—both so undeserved. Both so lavish and freely given—not cheaply obtained or bought.

You have done all of this, Father. And you just keep doing it. I thank you that you see things in me and call them by their real name before I even recognize them. I thank you that you know me thoroughly and yet you love and call me precious anyway. Thank you that you have a purpose for me and you have every tool I need to fulfill this purpose. Thank you that you have called me and gifted me for that purpose.

Thank you this morning that you are the Good Shepherd. You have the day’s pasture already chosen. You have already found the stream that you want us to drink from; you have already gone ahead of us in this day.

Thank you, Father. Now help me, and those reading these words, to lean and trust in these facts. May they comfort us, brace us and encourage us.

Praise you! Bless you!

Amen and amen.

Shut the Door

But when you pray, go into your room, shut the door and pray to your Father.

When I pray, not if.

Jesus commanded me: Go into your room, Tamera. Jesus is asking me to be intentional. He is telling me to make a conscious will-altering change of direction. I have to decide to remove myself from the traffic of my home and life and all its demands. I must go into my secret place.

And shut my door.

Often I go into my room, but I fail to close the door.

I forget that I need to close off the rest of the world for a while. I must shut out the demands and the clamoring for my attention. I must willingly close the door against the expectations of the day, against the agenda, against the clock ticking.

I must shut the door and close myself into a space where I might better hear. A place where I might be tunneled to selectively hear One voice.

When I am expecting company for dinner, if weather permits, I leave the door wide open, but when I was teaching last year and would begin the lessons for the day, I shut my door. When we come into our home for the night, we shut the door.

This shutting of the door is a closing off—a boundary. A fence. Jesus, however, is doing more than telling me to shut out the exterior distractions. To keep things out is not his only purpose, but he wants to keep me in—to keep my mind from wandering.

To keep my spirit from flailing (he wants me swaddled like a newborn child).

To keep my attention from being diverted.

To keep my mind fixed on him.

In the Matthew* passage Jesus is talking to his twelve. He has been sitting on the side of a hill speaking to the multitudes. Radically teaching against the religious grain. With authority he is teaching principles that will turn their cultural and religious world upside down and inside out.

And then he turns to his disciples, the ones who have committed to follow him, and he says and when you pray.

When you pray.

And he says to me: Tamera, when you talk with the Father don’t pray for people to see. Don’t pray for an audience. You have a conversation with the Father. Just him. You go to your secret place. Your hidden place, Tamera. You enter the one place no one else can go and you shut the door.

And, Tamera, what you ask and seek from the Father in private, what you bring to him behind that closed door he will answer openly.

But, first.

First, you must go to your room and shut the door.



*  Matthew 6:6

Do It Anyway

The cover of the latest (October 2012) Christianity Today is covered with 1 ½” photos of twenty-five women. The headline reads: Fifty Women to Watch: Those Most Shaping the Church and Culture.


My reactive thoughts immediately had me asking can we put any more pressure on these women. Can we make the fish bowl any larger or set it at any more of a visible angle? Why do we do this? Why must we turn everyone into a celebrity? These women are servants, and many of them deal with their own issues. Now they have to add being watched. It’s enough to become a hermit! Or to fight the ugly dragon of hubris (awful pride) mentioned often by Madeleine L’Engle.

Yet, the muted cover with its female symbol stopped me. The photos of the women’s faces stopped my stickering and preparing this magazine for the shelf. I recognized several of the faces. Many of these women have been tools the Lord has used to speak to me. Their words have often pierced me, inspired me, angered me, impassioned me, coaxed me and redirected me.
Ann Voskamp. Beth Moore. Margaret Feinberg. Joni Eareckson Tada. Household names. Their books are on my book shelves. My Bible and journals are peppered with insights I have found in their studies. They are now familiar faces and even more familiar voices. We recognize them and their style—their place in the kingdom.

I thank God for Beth and Ann and all the others. Regardless of anybody and everybody’s opinion these women have been doing kingdom work and sometimes they take intense heat for it. Beth and Ann and many others, however, have been revisiting and revising and reinventing a woman’s place in God’s kingdom.

But as I thought about these women I considered others. Ones whose faces weren’t on the cover of the nation’s most well known Christian publication. They didn’t make the cover and they weren’t one of the fifty mentions inside the pages.

I thought about these women. Women you may never meet, you may never hear their voices, or see their faces. Women you may never recognize at a conference or on the back of a book. Women whose influence you may never be able to trace. I hesitate somewhat here. I don’t want the recognition they receive here from me to be their reward. My thoughts about and for them are simply not enough. So, I hesitate.

But I write anyway.

Why do we hesitate to say the good? Why are we reluctant to allow good words, kind words, uplifting words to whistle through our lips? Yet, ugliness and harshness blows past before we even think.

We wait too long, we hesitate too often to encourage and exhort. We hold back our words of affirmation for fear they have a feel of flattery. We are reluctant with our intuition and encouragement because we feel we will be the fool if we misread a situation or a particular look on someone’s face. We are afraid. Deep down we worry that the acknowledgement of someone else’s contributions and gifts will cause us to be accountable for our own. Blessing someone else often makes us feel vulnerable. We become transparent because we become brave enough to allow someone else to know we see into their lives. We see them.

Women scare us. We’re afraid of comparisons and falling short. We are afraid to share our victories because then we feel we must confess our failures. (I do this constantly. I am forever pointing out my own faults and failures. Attempting to make sure that I am real with others. But our gifts are what make us real too. And they need to be acknowledged.)

Women can be hard and exacting creatures. But the lesson for me in recent months has been don’t wait to say something good or encouraging to someone. Don’t wait to be kind. Don’t hesitate to tell a woman that she is lovely—and it is not just about her clothes or the ability to accessorize. Don’t be reluctant to, out of the blue, look at someone and say I appreciate the way you…

Paul tells us that we are to spur one another on to good deeds. We are to encourage one another daily (Hebrews 10:25). We are also afraid to do this because what if someone doesn’t do or offer it back? What if others disagree with us? What if no one looks at us and pats us on the back? What then? In the words of Martina McBride: Do It  Anyway .  This You Tube clip is worth watching!

(Mother Teresa’s poem Mother Teresa's poemseemed to have inspired this song.

Today, I am doing just that. I am tired of being afraid to bless the Body of Christ. I am weary of worrying how my words will be received. I am slightly exasperated with our reluctance to bless instead of criticize.

There are some women in or around my world who are quietly living in the valley, diligently doing what has been given to their hands to do, embracing the place they are and blessing many within their realm of influence. They are doing many things anyway. They need to know that this life in the valley will be worth it. It will be of value. It does and will have purpose.

My list is not fifty women long—although it could have been.

Meet some of the women of my world.


Terri Smith—read the post  Quarter of a Century

Amy Scalf—our minister’s wife. My good friend. She is not a typical minister’s wife. In Amy there’s very little sugar, but there’s plenty of spice. Six adopted children call her mama. She lost a precious son when he was barely three years old, and she bears the scars from the battle, but they have empowered her to minister to others who have lost a child. Many people teach, but Amy is a teacher. And, yes, there is a difference. She has a strong gift of administration and wields it deftly. Amy knows the truth; she tells it like it is and straightens out the messes. She weeps silently, hurting for the deep things that often others don’t see.

Sharon Wright—Spiritual Formation Director and marriage counselor at a large church. She is a woman of seriously profound wisdom. Sharon’s influence and spiritual direction and words still guide me today. Sharon is soft-spoken and gentle, but she has a power within her that is mighty to see. The Spirit has gifted her with the ability to rightly divide not only the Word, but people. She sees through to the real crux of the issue and speaks truth right to the center of it.

JoAnn Embs—a servant. One of the most beautiful and gentle spirits I have ever seen in a woman. JoAnn washes tables as if they were in the banquet halls of heaven. She is drawn to the hurting and the sad and to the least of these. She works, unseen, in her little corner of the world and has no idea what her words to me every Sunday morning mean. She has no idea of how much impact they have. I want to be like her when I grow up.

Christy Witt--An extraordinary single mom. Christy has an incredibly generous spirit. She gives and gives and gives. And she gives cheerfully. She pays attention to detail and her blessings flow out of those observations. She is loyal--a friend you would want with you in a crisis. A friend you would want in the midst of suffering--in the midst of pain.

Angela Turner—one of my dearest and longest friends. We often teasingly call her Sarge. She has a strong gifting of administration—and can see in a linear fashion that astounds me. She has the ability to see consequences and cause and effect a long way down the road. I have benefited quite often from this gift. What many people don’t see are the quiet things she does for others or how her heart bleeds. Angela puts her hand to the plow and does not look back. She is one of the lionesses in the Kingdom—fiercely loyal and deeply committed.

Dianna Harmon—this woman has one of the most beautiful and encouraging spirits I have ever known. She has endured life-threatening surgeries with a gentle and faithful resolve that has floored me. She is a prayer warrior and the enemy probably chuckled when they saw her approaching, but I guarantee they didn’t laugh for long. And she has loved me like a daughter. She has prayed and interceded for me and mine too many times to count.

Donna Vaughan—my sister-in-love. One of the wisest, most intelligent, gifted women I have ever known. Donna reminds me of Deborah and her tree. Her husband is a minister and she takes and fulfills her role with great grace and profound beauty. She has learned to say no; she has disciplined herself to resist peer pressure—not allowing herself to be pushed into a mold of someone else’s expectations. She has raised two godly sons who will no doubt praise her at the city gates. And her husband, I know, counts her as one of the most tremendous gifts God has ever given him.

Sherry Mohr—one of the most alive women in my life. She is the mother of five incredible children I love deeply. Her grasp of Scripture and its daily applications is extraordinary. She is intelligent and witty and one of the hardest workers I have ever met in my life. She reminds me of Abigail and her discernment and wisdom in the mess with David, but she is certainly NOT married to Nabal. Actually, it is because of her marriage that I began to watch her; honestly good marriages are rare, and so I noticed hers.

Pam Finley—a woman I would want in my corner. A prayer warrior I would request on my flank. She wields the Sword of Truth with a dexterity that is astounding, but she also loves the Word and is passionate about the truths and principles found in its depths. She is a minister’s wife. Astute and strong. She is a no-nonsense kind of woman. Pam ministers to her flock; she feeds and leads them to green pastures. Like Priscilla, I believe she could hold her own with Paul.
The last four women are my daughters:

Anna Vaughan  
and read her blog : Unforced Rhythms

Katherine Rector
And read her blog: The Whole Kat and Kaboodle

Olivia Vaughan


Abby Vaughan

My four girls tell me that I see good things in them just because I am their mama. My answer to that is truth is truth. I admire my daughters more than almost anyone in the world. Each one of them has changed me and spurred me on to be a better woman. In twenty years there’s a great possibility that if Christianity Today (or a publication like it) discusses the influential women of the time my daughters’ names will be on the list. Is this just a mother’s bias and hope? Perhaps, but there’s truth in my bias and a foundation of hope in my dreams.

These are women who are doing it anyway. Women who are influencing the world God has put them in right now and right here.

Please go today and encourage someone in your world. Point out something good and right in them. Shine a light on their gifts. Tell them you appreciate them. Let them know you see the Spirit at work in them.

Don’t hesitate to bless.

You never know you may be the blessing God uses to exhort someone to fulfill their calling and shape and mold their culture. You may be the catalyst God uses to help someone step into their gifts.

Please go today.

Don’t wait to say something kind.

Please do it anyway.

Morning Prayer

I have been hungry for your Word, Father. Hungry for your presence. The seams of me are stretched.


I have tasted your Word; I know that it is good. I know what your Word can do in a heart, in a spirit and in a mind that is given to you. I know what your Word has the power to do.

I know because your Word has transformed me too many times to count. The tally marks would look like a cross-hatched piece of artwork.

But you call me deeper. You do not allow me to remain on a plateau of revelation for too long. Your Spirit stirs in me and reminds me of learned, but forgotten truths. Your Spirit mines up, out of the deepest recesses of my heart, truths that have been hidden. Treasures in the dark.

And there are themes and patterns I recognize. You have infused me with a love of your Word—and the symbolism and the metaphor laced through the grommets of it.

This week you reminded me. This week your Spirit took me back to a place of teaching.

We don’t live in tents anymore, but I am a tent. My heart is the temporary and earthly dwelling of Your Spirit.

I am the skin-tent of God.

My poles have stretched my skin tightly and tethered me to this world for a little while. My pegs have been hammered into the physicality of this place.

And your Word through Amos and Job* have revealed to me that You will come and have fellowship with me in this tent. You will come and sit on the cushions of this flesh and spirit tent and converse with me. You will come and have an intimate conversation with me—you will sit beside me and both of us will lean forward and speak to the other.

My God, you will be a friend of my tent.*

This one word, Father, you gave to me. This word cowdh* reminded me of what you long to do. You long to have fellowship with your people, to be invited into the interior of their tents. You do not want to simply sit at the edge of the tent flaps or stand at the entrance as so many of your people did with Moses*. Because of the tent-dwelling time of Jesus, because he gave his tent over as a sacrifice for us, because he left us, returned to you, but did not leave us orphans*, he sent the Holy Spirit to now abide in these tents of ours. We no longer have to wait at the entrance. You will join us inside out tent if we just simply ask.

Because of Jesus. Because our brother came and did what we could not do for ourselves, because our brother came and moved obstacles from our paths, because our brother came and fulfilled your every expectation, Your Spirit will and can now reside within our tent.

You do not just visit.

I ask now, come join me in my tent. It’s messy. It’s cluttered. It’s dark. But come anyway, please?

Come anyway.

I welcome you into this skin-tent of mine. Please come and sit with me on my cushions and recline with me on my pillows. Let’s talk and reason together.* Come and have fellowship with me.

I welcome you.

Come this morning.

Come.











Amos 3:7

Job 29: 21-27

John 14:18

Exodus 33: 10

Isaiah 1:18

Cowdh—Hebrew for secret, intimate friendship

Bitterness

Our conversation was a serious one. We were discussing intense issues. She listens well and she converses with great wisdom for one so young, so when the words slid out of her mouth I almost did not catch them. Two sentences later I realized that my youngest daughter’s words had been spoken to me.


Me.


Her words pinched. She did not mean for them to do so. I had made a statement, commenting on another situation, and she applied them to me.

I hear some bitterness in that statement.

Those are the words she said to me.

They were couched in a half-joking tone. But they stopped me. My gut reaction was surely not? I kept thinking of her observation; I was appalled by the maybe-truth of it and pricked by her honest candor.

When I tried to pull her words from the ground soil of my heart—they resisted. There were roots of truth there I had to acknowledge. An undetected shoot sent into the deep places of my heart.

At first, I thought she can not be right. I have let go of bitterness; I dug those roots up long ago. And I know about roots. I know how deep they can descend and how much dirt, soil and earth can be disturbed, turned and moved when you pull the root up and out.

I know.

I have pulled up a lot of bitter roots. Some were shallow, only in the surface soil. Some had only one long tap root and slid straight out of the dirt. Several, however, were so deep I sat down on my backside with the pulling.

Sometimes even now when I am ready to plant something new—excavating a deep depression to accommodate a new variety —I will find a root left behind from the last digging. I can see where the root has been cleaved by a shovel in an attempt to remove it. But it remained.

Bitterness goes deep.

My daughter’s words were said as a simple observation, but the Spirit used them to prick me gently. Just enough for one drop of blood to blister to the surface—enough to remind me that a root of bitterness can grieve the heart of God.

Bitterness has no place in the heart of a Christ-follower. Bitterness impedes the working grace of the Spirit. Bitterness’ dormancy seems benign, but its root and tendrils must be exposed and removed because bitterness and grace will not co-exist.

The prick and the blister woke me.

The convex curve of that dark red drop caused me to examine the residual roots in the soil of myself. That dark red drop has become the curved back of the shovel I need to use.

At least it is raining today--the soil will be moist and soft. And my garden gloves are in the laundry room.

I Think I Got This Now

In my twenties I was quite busy having babies. Four. Four daughters in seven years. Inevitably each time I announced I was pregnant someone would ask or question me: how are you going to love another? They asked this question as if every time I birthed a new baby that the love present in my and their father’s heart would have to be divided--as if we had a pie with only so many pieces.

The prevailing theory seemed to be that each time a child came the pieces of the mothering pie would have to be cut smaller. More narrow. Perhaps this is true of time, of resources, of material things.

But not of love. Love expands. Love enlarges. It grows.

Love multiplies.



On September 13, 2012 my love multiplied again. My second grandson, my second grandchild, came into this world on a Thursday at 6:05 p.m.

Judah Nathaniel Vaughan.

Judah, your name means a gift of praise. Indirectly Nathaniel is a family name: it would have been my name had I been a boy and it would have been your mama’s name had she been a boy. I’m very glad she wasn’t. Your mama was my first child and the very reason I wanted more. Because of her you have three aunts. Plain and simple.
I heard about you one night in a quiet, short conversation with your mama. The conversation was brief, but I felt its impact for days and days. My mind was too finite and too limited to wrap around your existence yet.

But your existence grew. And my imagination exploded.

Judah, I remember the day your mama called and told me that the black and white images on the screen revealed you were a boy. A little boy. Later your mama would have a 4-D ultrasound and the image of your little face impacted my reality. I studied your little face often.

At this point Aunt Babz nicknamed you little lion man.

Lions seemed to appear everywhere or I became acutely aware of them. Suddenly this nickname became something more. In many ways it seems to be a marking of who you are, of who you will be.

I watched your mama grow with you. Yours was a quiet growing. Unobtrusive.

And in direct proportion to her physical expansion she grew as a woman.
At the end the weight of you pulled on your mama. Pulled her forward. You were almost too large for her.

The night you were born, in the late hours of the next morning, I slept in a chair in your mama’s hospital room. During the night I woke, and I watched your mama. Several times she looked over at me and later she told me I looked miserable in the hard, want-to-be recliner.

In reality, I was trying not to cry. I was damming the walls around my over-productive tear ducts because I had tried very hard all day long not to cry. I wanted to be strong for you and your mama. I hadn’t wanted tears to interfere or get the best of me. Your Noni has a reputation for crying. And on your day I just wanted to be a rock for your mama. An unemotional one. But in the middle of the night I woke from my light slumber and peered through the half dark at you and your mama. And when she thought I was miserable? I was really just holding back the flood, the release and dam of tears, which had been held back all day long.

Judah, she was beautiful in the faint light. And you were splayed across her chest like the giant of a man you will be. And I was enthralled. I watched her wake as you grew fitful. Her voice soothed and quieted you. She whispered in your ear and you would go limp again. She sensed I was watching her. Perhaps, she thought I was assessing, but in reality I was admiring and accepting. Your mama had been a woman grown for a long time, but she stepped completely over the threshold with you.

This revelation came to me during her hours of labor with you. I watched her. Was near her. I’m not sure she really needed me. But someday, Judah, you will discover and run headlong into your mama. You need to know that she is a compressed package of stubbornness, strong will, strength and stoicism.

Even so when you were born, the whole great long length of you, I was astounded that her tiny little frame had held, carried and encompassed you for nine months.

She let me cut your cord. The cord that tethered you to her, that had fed and sustained you, I cut. And I was both ecstatic for the privilege, and awed by the enormity of the task. Others could have done this—the doctor or your mama. But your mama allowed me. And when I finished they laid you on your mama’s chest. I was speechless and stunned (this too is a rarity for your Noni).

God’s provision for birth and the miracle of it—the absurdity of it--can only be explained by his grace. The profoundness and the simplicity of it could only come from his hand. I felt like a little child getting to be privy to something much bigger and more wonderful than I could ever comprehend.

I, who had been present to see you arrive, felt like I had just arrived. I stood by the head of her bed and peered at you, and I was totally oblivious to anyone or anything else. I got to see your mama’s face when she saw yours. Just know, Judah, she loved you before. But in that moment she fell in love with you. Her heart broke wide open and she pulled you back into herself.

Then in the chaotic aftermath of delivery room your mama looked at me. There was such gentle sincerity and firmness in her face and voice and I will never, ever forget her words:

I think I got this now.

I think I got this, now. She said it for me, but in that moment she believed her own words, her own prophetic statement.

And it was time for me to go.

I left you and your mama alone. You, who had known each other for nine months, needed time to recognize each other’s faces.*

I left the room and went out to deliver all the news of you. And through the long walk from the delivery room to the waiting room love was multiplying exponentially.

During that walk I kept thinking of your mama’s statement:

I think I got this now.


She does, Judah.







*This is an allusion to a text that my youngest daughter sent Judah's mama (my oldest daughter):

He wants to know your face. He knows your voice and your heartbeat, now he needs to know your face.







Judah--about 1 1/2 hours after birth. His mother's tattoo? Greek word for grace.




Little Lion Man's roar.




Judah loves his fist.




Mama and her Judah.




What lips!




Noni and Judah




Judah Nathaniel Vaughan
September 13, 2012
6:05 p.m.
8 lbs and 5 ounces
21 1/2 inches long



Tilted Axis

You, Elijah David, were born at 5:47 p.m. on September 1, 2012. And your arrival tilted the axes of many, many worlds.

My axis began to shift back in January. Your mom and dad called and suggested an Ice Cream Sundae night on Friday. This wasn’t out of the ordinary. We get together a lot. But this invitation felt different. Somehow I knew. I knew what they were going to tell me. They came, they said, bearing a late Christmas gift. I laughed and messed up their surprise by blurting out that I knew they were going to have a baby. They didn’t seem to know how to handle my announcement. Somewhere deep inside me I understood that you had begun. The bib they brought me to announce this news is still in my room in plain sight.

My axis shifted many more times in the following months. When your mom called me and told me they heard your heartbeat for the first time I wept. When they brought the first ultrasound pictures and I saw your profile the axis within me shifted noticeably.

When your mama and daddy discovered you were a little boy they called and I couldn’t seem to breathe quite right. Oxygen didn’t get to the places it needed to be.

And when your mama’s belly began to round with your growth my heart began to swell in direct proportion. God makes sure that mamas’ bellies and grandmamas’ hearts have a great capacity and elasticity for great expansion. It’s a good thing.

The first time I saw your little foot and the sweep of your body make the terrain of your mama’s belly move there was a tremor in the landscape  of my own.

Your daddy predicted with absolute accuracy the day you would arrive. We sat in the midst of a family gathering and guessed when you would make your arrival. Earlier he had been the only one to know the measurement of your mama’s belly. I was second, but he was first. So, when we decided to try and predict your arrival your daddy spoke. He knew. He thought he was guessing, but he knew. (Your Grandpa Rector was very close, but he was guessing.)

During the last time someone looked at your face and little body through the wall of your mama’s womb, I was there. At first you were too big for me to see. I was looking for the whole of you, but the ultrasound couldn’t capture your entirety. The technician worked until she found your little face obscured by your placenta which tethered you to your mama. And you were sleeping. Your little face peeked through briefly and just a glimpse of you was caught on a shiny paper frame. It didn’t do you justice. It didn’t prepare me at all. My axis shifted five more degree.

I saw your mama three days later. She was buying tiny pants for you. And I knew, Elijah. I knew you were coming. I could see it in your mama’s beautiful face. I could sense it in the weight of you in her body. You had grown too great for her frame to contain.

My phone rang at 4:23 am. Your daddy’s name scrolled across the screen. I laughed out loud. They were going to the hospital. You were on your way. You were coming.

And my axis shifted.

And the waiting began.

I saw your mama briefly in her labor room. Her face seemed ethereal and otherworldly. Her body was shifting, contracting and giving over to the work it would take to bring you here. But she was lovely in the midst of it. Focused in the anticipation of you,  and in the pregnancy of the hour she truly labored to bring you here.

And your daddy. Elijah, your daddy was someone to behold. There was a deep measure of intensity in him. An intensity that had only briefly manifested before—usually in times of deep protectiveness and concern for your mama. His body and demeanor seemed relaxed on first glance, but as I watched I could see the readiness, the tension that he held. And he held it for you and your mama.

Periodically during the six hours of the afternoon he appeared several times to us. An anticipated messenger. He was calm and quiet. Without pomp he would just slide unobtrusively around the corner of the waiting room. Most often he only gave two sentences of information and then he would smile and shrug and turn to go back to his appointed place.

After a while he didn’t come. His absence was an explanation. I knew that you must be moving into this world. The waiting room was crowded and noisy. It was alive. I moved out into the hall where there was breathing space. The clock showed 5:35 p.m.

See, Elijah, your aunt had prayed twelve hours earlier; she had asked for you to please come meet us. And when I stood in the hall I prayed for you. I am sure that the nursing staff thought that this particular grandmother was a little crazy. I realize now that I was praying out loud and my mouth and lips were moving fast. I prayed for your mama to have the stamina and strength to bring you into this world. I prayed for your daddy to be her strong wall to lean on. I prayed for you to come knowing that you had a place in this world. I prayed that you would know your purpose early. I prayed for you to be whole. But these prayers, Elijah, were just a culmination of all the prayers that have been prayed for you since January. That hall was just an extension of my prayer closet.

I looked up to see your daddy come around the corner once again. And the axis shifted me off balance.

His face was something to behold. Elijah. He looked like he had just been given a glimpse into heaven. His face held an awe that I have rarely seen. He was stunned. In courtesy I had to look away. In respect I had to close my eyes and allow the glory on his face to settle before I could look at him again. He was astounded by the miracle of you and the strength and tenacity of your mama.

Later he would come and get your Grandma Rector and me and lead us into the dark, gentle room. There you were in your mama’s arms. My inner axis tilted at an angle I couldn’t quite navigate. You were the whole of our worlds compressed down into one tiny little being. You were your mama and daddy dovetailed into one. Our God had enabled these two incredibly beautiful people to create you. And I blessed Him. I blessed Him for you.

I held you in my arms. I, who have held countless babies, was tentative and hesitant. Overwhelmed. You were almost too much for me. And the complete shift happened. All the terrain within me slid too many degrees to measure.

My world had been shifted before—when your mama and aunts were born, but this was a different kind of shift. I had been warned; I had been told. But I hadn’t comprehended or understood what it would mean to hold the embodiment of the next generation in my arms. I understood what the Psalmist meant when he said, “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.” *

Later we would all wait at the nursery window to see you through the glass. The nurse wheeled your mama and you into the corridor. Your mama’s arms hovered in the air as your daddy reached for you to take you behind the glass and wash the labor of the day away. She looked bereft and a little lost without you. We watched as a very competent nurse instructed your daddy about the little body that was yours.

Elijah, I looked over at your mama, my daughter, and watched the swell of tears rise in her tired eyes. As she gazed at your daddy and you I saw her heart swell. I witnessed the expansion of her heart for her two boys. I looked at her and said, “There it is. Psalm 37:4. There’s the desire of your heart in front of you.” And the swell of tears spilled. My own vision blurred. Then nurse took her to her room.

We remained. All of our faces pressed against the glass. We moved and pivoted to gain a better view of you. Your dad was listening to the nurse’s instructions. Perhaps, she taught him something he didn’t know. But when you cried because you were cold and afraid and insecure, she didn’t teach him to put his hand on your chest and stroke your cheek with his finger. No, he knew how to do that on his own.

When we left the hospital that night. I was reluctant, but I knew it was time. As we walked through the hospital I told everyone in the hall, the elevator and the security gate that I had a brand new grandson. I told the tired employees at Chik-fil-A that we were celebrating because you had arrived, and they allowed us to stay after they locked the doors.

Elijah David, I went to sleep in the early hours of the morning thinking of you and seeing you on the back of my eyelids. I fell asleep praying for you. That’s not the first time, and it is certainly not the last.

I love you, Elijah David Rector.

My axis has tilted because of you.



Elijah, this is how you looked when I met you.



Part of your family at the nursery window.

Your amazing Dad!

Dad washing your thick head of hair!



Your favorite place to be--with Mama.



My shifting world.



Elijah David Rector
September 1, 2012
7.2 pounds, 19 1/4 inches