"...Consider it all joy...." REALLY?

In the past two weeks, I have been verbally beaten up ("reviled" as the Bible calls it), by two different people...people I love, people who I believe love(d) me very much, for two very different reasons.  (You are thinking: "wow. she has been busy!")
Tonight, well, no, last night now, was the most recent beating. Though I am without physical marks, I am bruised, and I am in emotional pain.  Worst of all, there is absolutely nothing I can say or do, to change the person's mind.  NOTHING.  I am powerless.  I am a peacemaker.  I hate to be powerless.  I am so exasperated that, though I am completely exhausted from chronic physical pain and acute bawling, I cannot go to sleep.  I must work this through, at least in my own attitude and will, before I close my eyes. So, I have parked myself here, before a blank page.


So I thought of the verses in Matthew and James, where Jesus speaks to His followers.  (Perhaps I should listen...)  
Matthew 5:11
 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
James 1:² Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various  trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴ And let  endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
"Consider it all joy," and, "Blessed are you..." (Right.)


REALLY? Are You kidding me?


This person has accused me of things I have not done.  He has spoken rashly about things he is not privy to.  He has spoken untruths and challenged me to prove he is wrong.  I spent my Friday night crying.  Well, crying, and really praying.  And instead of wasting a lot of energy trying to argue, or prove my truthfulness, I knelt to pray.  (Just so you get the significance, I never do that.  I mean I do pray, but  usually after I've done a lot of fussing and fuming and proving and so on, ad nauseam.)  
This is huge.


I don't know what will happen.  It is not up to me.  I am responsible for myself alone, before God.  (That's plenty.)  I am free in Jesus to sit quietly, and wait, while the Holy Spirit does His lovely work in me, and my accusers.  I have asked Him to convict me where I have said or done something to offend these ones I love.  Beyond that, I must wait, and consider it all joy.  I choose to believe I am blessed in this dark passage.
I don't know the "all" part of joy yet, but I do already feel strangely peaceful, and yes, quietly joyful that this tearful time has brought me to my knees before the One who knows all the truth there is.
I can trust Someone like that.  
I can go to bed now and sleep...


Blowing kisses to Heaven,
Debbie

The Gift of Missing

I think it was about two weeks ago now...I went to bed, intending to sleep...but lay there crying instead.  (Don't be distressed, I cry a lot these days.  I think it goes along with the hot flashes and word-hunting...no biggie.)  Why crying?, you ask.  Well, its all part of the gift of missing.  


On this particular night, I first turned toward the wall, and my eyes wandered over the pictures I have tucked under ribbons on a board there.  It was the one of my handsome Daddy that first got the tears rolling.  He's been gone about a year and a half now, and still, I have this feeling that it can't be real.  How can this man, always as tough as the Duke himself, kinda rugged, and with a sparkle of orneriness in his eye, truly have grown old, and frail, and just die? It just doesn't seem possible.  I want to go back to that day when I was about 16, and my folks were talking about "when we die."  I was mortified! "Don't talk about that!" I exclaimed.  They both smiled knowingly, and way too calmly, first at each other, and then at me, and my Dad said, "Well, Little One, everybody dies sometime, and one day, your Mother and I will too.  But we won't leave til you're ready.  You will be just fine."  


I want to go back to that day and hug him again, and then look him in the eye and tell him, he lied.  I have not felt fine!  Except maybe I might be at least accepting that there can be fine days...in the future.  I think I am far enough away from the raw shock of it, of my Daddy being gone, that I can think about the real gift of missing.


At the other end of life, there is my 2 year old, beautiful, stubborn, smart, and very busy grandson, Aaron.  As I lay there in bed, I picked up my cell phone and began randomly looking through pictures and videos.  There are plenty of pictures of this boy, this darling miniature-Zachary, (his Daddy, my son). And soon I was watching a little 15 second video I made during a recent visit with little Aaron. (I can't get it to show up, sorry...I will try again tomorrow.)
His Papa and I enjoyed those three nights and four days with all the abandon we could manage!  What a gift that time with Aaron was!  Anyway, I digress.  Often.

This little video is burnt into the very fibers of my heart, and every time I watched it that night, I ached to hold him, to kiss those feather-soft eyelashes, to hear his little-boy voice.  So I wept some more, in the gift of missing Aaron.
(Tears spilled out of my eyes and rolled right into my ears...I really hate that.)


Well, then I thought of Jesus.  (Can't help it, He's where I go when I am crying.)
And I thought about Him singing over me, and I wonder what the song is...and I wish I could hear Him and see Him sitting there on the edge of the bed...and then I am smiling and crying and blowing my nose and realizing that I am missing Someone I have never seen, with all my heart!  I am amazed by this, and pretty glad.  I do chatter to Him all the time, it would follow then, that I would grow to miss Him.  I know, right?  Isn't that awesome?!


As you might guess by now, my mind wandered further, and I found the gift.
The gift of missing.


I miss my Daddy dreadfully, but I am blessed to have had a father whom I care enough about, and who truly loved me unconditionally, to miss.


I miss my daughter, Lacie, away training for the Navy, but what a lovely ladybug to miss!  What if I never had her?  I am blessed to miss her beautiful heart and full-to-over-flowing-laughter.


I miss my son, Zachary, so far from home.  Afghanistan.  7000 miles.  I try really hard not to think about how far he is from my reach.  But wow, what a boy, a "Darling Boy", to miss!  (That's his Super-hero name from me:  "Darling Boy" to the rescue!!!)
I miss my Daughter-in-love, Rachel.  We once shared devotions and life-maps and apples and peanut butter during a difficult time in my life.  Rachel is a friend I miss daily.  She is awaiting her husband's return from Afghanistan in December.  Rachel is a wonder--as a wife, as a mother, as a woman with conviction.  I admire her.  I am glad to have such a precious young woman to miss.  It is a gift to my heart.


I miss my sweet little Aaron, also waiting for his Daddy to come home.  I wouldn't want a day to go by without having that little ray of sunshine to miss!
I miss my youngest son, Samuel.  He isn't so far away, just far enough to be way more independent, and less in need of his mama.  I miss the long-ago days when he needed my help to tie his shoes, or make his lunch, or tuck him in with prayer.  But I remember, and I miss, and I am blessed with the gift of missing this now-tall, angular-man-faced boy of mine.


I think you can see where I'm going here.  I seem to be doing a lot of missing lately...and yes, it is painful.  Still, because I choose to trust in a loving God, I can accept these gifts, tinged with an aching in my heart.  It is my gift to share in the missing He feels. I believe there is a real and desperate aching in His heart to hold me, to talk to you, to sing over us all with gladness. 


So when I go to sleep tonight, if I get tears in my ears, I will smile heavenward, and just open the gift.
Blowing Kisses to Heaven, Goodnight.

Kisses

Kisses

I love the nature and necessity of kisses

Somehow built into babes at the start

And when little kisses are given

Off they go--in a flash!--to the heart

Whether given one friend to another

Or the way of a man with a maid

There's a mystery, so sweetly embedded

That its' Author alone could explain

Most days, my mind tends to wander

To Heaven above, and sweet grace

And how, on that day, I'll adore Him

And finally, humbly kiss His dear face

another debbie-schaffer-short original

                                                                      2008

For as long as I can remember, I have loved kisses.  As a child, I was given many kisses: some loud and sloppy, some carefully applied to a feverish forehead or injury, and always at bedtime.  I was extravagantly loved.  To this day, I automatically greet my mom and sister with a kiss when I go to visit, and again before I leave.  Mind you, we live only 2 miles apart, and we talk everyday by phone, but our familiar greeting isn't forced by time or distance; we've just always done it.   

In our Christian High School, I was always looking for a way to kiss whichever boy I happened to like.  I wasn't promiscuous, I just required a lot of affection each day.  Somehow, I made it all the way through four years at UCA without being on "social."  (Those of you who haven't been fortunate enough to attend an Adventist boarding school won't understand this term.  It just means punishment of not speaking to or being near your beloved for a certain amount of time...like 2 weeks or so, if you were caught holding hands, hugging or kissing.)

In my college years, I fell in love and married my particular "Beloved."  Before we were married, and "got a room", so to speak, we were given a number of notices for "Public Display of Affection", or PDA's.  (Yes, we attended an Adventist Liberal Arts College,-- Union College, in Lincoln, Nebraska!)

Kisses are, when given and received by someone I love, something magical.  I refer you to one of my favorite movies: "French Kiss", where Meg Ryan is trying her best to describe the whole thing as she sees it, to Luc, shortly after they have met on the airplane.  "A kiss is so intimate...Two people's lips together,

their breath, a little bit of their soul."

Exactly how I feel, Meg!  It is a way to show my love, my concern, my heart, to my lover.  A kiss on the cheek is like medicine from a friend.  And a  little kiss from my favorite two year old boy,  feels like angel kisses!  It's not that difficult to figure out, right?  But so hard to explain here...

Guess that's one reason I write poetry--somehow I can say what I feel in a much clearer way.  This much I can say though:  I really am longing for that great day...I wonder if I'll really  kiss His face right away, or if I'll just kneel for awhile first?

why kisses to heaven?

People always smile when I tell them my email address; they can't seem to help themselves.  Even over the phone, I can hear the smile gently lift their voice a little as they are writing down what I have dictated.  That's one of the unexpected blessings I get from that particular phrase: "Kisses to Heaven."
I didn't exactly think of it all by myself.  A handful (or two) of years ago, I sat in a study group at my church in Tillamook, Oregon.  Our teacher at that time was a favorite of mine; (she must have a poet's heart, because she says things in the same language my heart speaks), and I grew in very precious ways on those Saturday mornings in her company.
That particular day, Jaimy explained the way the word "worship" was laid out in the original Greek language of the Bible.  I thought I already had a pretty good idea what the word meant: reverence for love's sake, awe, adoration, and the happy, willing expression of those things.  I still think I have a good idea there, but wait til you hear what Jaimy said!
Evidently, the word we use for worship actually comes from two Greek words, which I, of course, cannot find right now, that translate roughly, "kisses toward." 
"Interestingly enough, the greek roots for the most common word translated "worship" in our english New Testament are "toward" and "kiss", i.e., to kiss toward." (from Fool4Him.com) 
The word "Proskuneo" in the Greek, gives the idea of a kiss in adoration, a little bit like a precious pet that joyfully licks the hand or face of his master out of sheer reverence!
 I was so touched by that image, that I couldn't wait to find a way to incorporate the concept into something I could use everyday!  I wanted a reminder of tenderness toward my God; a way to often think of Him, to purposefully live my life in an exercise of blowing kisses to heaven.  
I want Him to know that if I could, I would surely kiss His face in humble adoration.  
One  day, I will.
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Note: Next time, I will tell you all about how I feel about kisses.  (And there'll be a poem!)