The Journey, not the Destination

“Therefore, you will see the land only from the distance; you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel.”
 Deuteronomy 32:52

Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you
 Matthew 13:11

My husband and I drove down the Florida Turnpike on a sunny, spring day. The trees dotting the wide, sandy expanse on either side of the road were leafy and green, the tiny leaves like butterfly wings fluttering in the gentle breeze.
We were headed to the Columbia Restaurant in Celebration, Florida, to celebrate our daughter’s engagement. Frustrated by the minimalist step-by-step directions offered by the short tempered female voice of our GPS, I kept punching the arrow that would show me the entire map. I wanted to see exactly where I was going and when I was getting there.
“Did you see that?” my husband asked.
“What?” I said, looking up from my Galaxy pad with its mezmerizing GPS map.
“It was the Suwannee River,” he said, “You missed it.”
I looked out the rear window of the van and watched the bridge and surrounding trees blur into the past. I completely missed the river. 
I had a happy memory of camping beside the Suannee with my best friend in college,  and waking up to a blue grass festival at the state park. I had really wanted to see the river again.
How like me to be so focused on the destination that I completely missed the journey. I felt like I had flunked Zen 101.
You would think that midway through my own life’s journey I would have gotten this basic principle of the abundant life. Stop focusing on the end-game. Pay attention to the now.
It made me think of the children of Isreal as they journeyed to the Promised Land. Did they realize the journey was all many, including Moses, were going to get? Did they savor each moment? Did they notice the barely discernable color just before the spring flowers burst into bloom? Did they note the orange sunset fading to pale pink then soft grey, the glistening sparkling stars in the vast sky, the softness of their baby’s hand? Did they see the river?
Their story is my story. I am one of those children of Israel journeying across the desert wondering where I am going. But the abundant life that Jesus promised me is right here. I can’t be so preoccupied with where my life is going that I miss the precious moments that get me there.

Letting go

Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
Psalm 46:10
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
Matthew 6:19-20
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9
I took my daily prayer walk along the beach today. God’s voice was pretty clear: be still and know that I am God.
“Ok,” I said.
I looked at the blue-green gulf, sparkling beneath the early afternoon sun, the sea gulls white against the blue sky, children playing in the sand, parents, their heads bent protectively down to tend them. What a beautiful world.
I prayed, and the same prayer, like a broken record skipped over and over again in my head. Why isn’t my son calling me? Why has he stopped contact? Why is he so eager to find things to be angry with me about? Why, why, why?
Life is a constant letting go. I know that. But when it is your children you have to let go, the treasures of your heart, it’s a lot easier said than done.
I thought about the verse “don’t store up treasures here on earth but instead in heaven” and wondered if the treasures I was storing up here on earth might be my children.
Is that the meaning of the Abraham/Isaac story? God knew that children were such a precious gift that hubris becomes an issue for loving human parents?
It’s true. I want to be God for my children. I want to guide them, protect them, love them with everything I am. And in return, I want them to love me.
But I have to be able to let them go.
I have to be as obedient as Abraham. I have to offer them up to the real God.
And it’s not just once. I have to do it over and over again. It is the hardest thing I have ever done.
My heart yearns for contact with my son. My heart yearns for his presence. My heart yearns for him to let me know with his calls, his texts, his visits that I matter to him.
But God never said that I would see this promised land with my son, a place where my son would actually want to be around me. That was not part of the parent-package God gave me when he filled my arms with the precious gift of my son.
God did promise that he would be with me when my son left. So I have to fill that yearning with God who promises that His grace is sufficient. I have to trust Him.
So with creaky arms, I lift up my son. I hand him off to God, my fingers clinging to his shirt, and God gently, patiently peeling them off. I lift him up like Abraham lifted up Isaac and I give thanks, I do, for all the good things in my life and in his.

Worried about What other People Think

I was sitting outside my local car repair shop enjoying the early morning sun, writing in my journal, and waiting for an oil change when a young man said to me,
“I’ll wash it. I will. I’ve been working 90-hour work-weeks, and I haven’t had a  chance to get to it.”
I looked where he was pointing and  saw he was talking about his car, a beautiful white Mustang.
I’m near-sighted, and I didn’t have my glasses on, so I couldn’t really see the dirt and then the dent he pointed out. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed the car.
His car was his treasure, and I think he assumed I had studied it and was judging him for not keeping it maintained.
 I’m a firm believer in regular engine maintenance. But the appearance of the exterior and interior of the car?  If only he knew that the soap-box derby-looking white Honda van with the fur-covered seats (vintage dog hair) in dock one was mine.
I hadn’t noticed his car, but earlier, when he stood in line in front of me, I noticed how clean he smelled, how kind he was to the attendant, how polite he was to the other woman in the waiting room, how at ease he was when he sat down.
These, I think, were his real treasures.
We chatted for a bit about Spring Break in Panama City, about the crazy hours he was working. He said he was a bartender and a night manager; he didn’t mind working long hours. He was kind and affable with a definite gift for gab. This, too, was his treasure.
After he drove away, I wanted to chase him down and say, “you are confused about what people see when they look at you. They don’t see a car. They see a really kind person.”
The Bible tells us a number of times how silly it is to worry.
Today, my eyes are wide open. I am thinking of the many times, just like my young friend,  I’ve worried about people judging my actions, or lack of action. I think of the time I’ve wasted worrying about what people think of my children, my house, my hair.
How silly.  Most people are concerned with what they are doing, not what I am doing.
Isaiah says the Lord will be your stability when you fear Him. That fear him part just means that we love His fellowship so much that we will do what we can to keep from losing it.
I think what Isaiah is trying to get me to understand here is that God is my stability when my thoughts are on pleasing Him, not others.

Selfishness

And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8
I am very selfish with my time. “I’m working,” I tell my friends, my family when they call while I’m in the middle of writing. However, sometimes I feel like a big fake. How can earnings that average less than my monthly electric bill actually be considered a job?
In spite of this abysmal earnings-per-hour ratio, I try to treat writing like teaching a class. I would never stop teaching to answer the phone.
I will be in the middle of writing a passage set deep in the swamp of Northwest Florida in 1880. I can hear the gators bellowing, the mucky slurp of someone walking between the Cyprus knees. And then the phone rings. I am popped out of my world and sucked unwillingly into 2011. It’s very irritating.
But,  don’t my friends and family need me when they call? Isn’t it more Godly to stop what I’m doing, lay my selfishness aside and enjoy their phone fellowship? Isn’t that what sacrifice is all about?
I wish I could be like Mother Teresa, calm and full of the wisdom. She laid her life on the altar of sacrifice and gave all she had to help the poor.
My daily dilemma is this: what is my altar of sacrifice? More specifically, how much time do I give to my writing, and how much time do I give to others? God has called me to write, but he has also called me to be a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend.
So when the verse says that God will give me all that I need to abound in every good work, how do I know which good works I’m supposed to be abounding in? Is writing a good work? Or is it better to help people? Or is my writing helping people?
I don’t know. And, not a day goes by that I don’t struggle with whether or not I should answer my phone while I am writing.
But shouldn’t this passage give me hope? “he who supplies seeds to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 2 Corinthians 9:10
In this passage, Paul is talking specifically about giving to the poor, giving to those in need.
What does it mean for me to give to the poor, to those in need? Is my tithe at church enough money to give? Is writing giving to those in need? 
When I first started writing devotionals, I pledged all my income from devotional writing to a mission in India that saves girls from a life on the streets, gives them a home and an education.
I’m not sure my meager earnings have helped many girls get off the street.
Peace comes to me when I remember the words of a wise writer, also a Christian, who told me many years ago, “pay yourself first. If you don’t, you will get nothing done that needs doing.”
What she meant by that was this: write first. If writing is what you are called to do, get your writing done first. Every day.
She’s right. When I get my writing done first, I am much happier, much more at peace the rest of the day. I am nicer to my husband and more patient with my children.
Here’s what I’ve come to. I have to believe that God is bigger than I can even imagine. I have to believe that if I earnestly seek his guidance through daily scripture study, fellowship with Christian friends, consistent praise and worship, that God will guide me. He will give me the insight that I need moment by moment, day by day. It’s the manna story all over again. I have to stop worrying about the promised land, and walk down the road I see ahead of me right now.
Amen.

Giving Thanks is a Discipline

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3: 16-17
I woke up this morning and took my golden retriever, Bones, for a nice long walk on the highway beside the gulf. The waves were fierce, red flags flying, clouds lying low.
 Bones walked happily, and I let him pull me into a quick trot. The mile is a great way to start my day, and I felt the joy of the Lord with the wind in my hair, and the insistent rhythm of the waves breaking fiercely against the white sand.
With all that beauty, and the mile trot, you would think I would come back to my house with a happy heart. But I didn’t. My heart felt heavy, anxious, stressed. I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Was I ill? Did I eat or drink something the night before that might have made me feel bad?
I thought of all the bad things that had happened to me in the past few days.
This in itself was strange. Normally, the morning is my happy time. I sink about four in the afternoon along with babies and Alzheimer’s patients. But the morning is usually good.
On this morning, I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to come up with a devotion and craft my current novel past page one hundred.
There was a pall over and around everything. I hated this feeling, but wasn’t sure what to do about it.
I drank a couple of glasses of water and ate a cup of yoghurt, my standard cure-all for whatever ails you.
It didn’t really help.
I read my daily devotion from the Upper Room, and the scripture hit me exactly where I needed it.
 Isaiah 40:26-31 reminded me that God was right here with me ready to help me out, and Colossians 2:15-17 reminded me of what I needed to do in order to get the peace that passes understanding and the joy that is God.
Give thanks.
So, I opened a blank page in Word to make  a list of all the God moments I had yesterday, the treasures that might carry me through the darkness.
I worried about the difficulty of thinking of things I was thankful for given the mood I was in.
But once I got started, it was like the gulf waves crashing against the shore, one following another then another.
-the sweetness of our friends Janet and Nell who opened their home to us last night.
-sitting together on the 17th floor of their magnificent condominium and watching the sun set over the blue-green gulf.
 “We love it here,” Janet said, “and we just want to share it with you,”
Now I’ve seen plenty of sunsets on the gulf before, but the sweet spirit of Janet, her eager desire for us to find in that sunset the same joy that she found was a precious gift
-watching two of my children sit on a couch and chat like adults, obviously enjoying each other’s company
-my sweet sister-in-law making sure my teenagers were taken care of and having a good time.
-my daughter’s gracious kindness in appreciating all the effort Janet put forth in sharing the condo’s many amenities with us
-my husband’s loving care in preparing appetizers, and displaying them on a tray fit for a five-star restaurant
-my son’s caretaking—insisting on driving us old folks home.
 My mood lifted with every sentence I typed.
Why is it that I can slip into a dark morass even though I know giving thanks can get me out of it?  It’s such a simple thing. Why is it so hard to do?
Perhaps because it’s a discipline, and I’m not a very disciplined person. But, if I could just follow a daily regimen of thanksgiving, I could enjoy a daily peace that passes understanding.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Colossians 3:15

Writer’s Groups and God

“In beginning was the word”
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man coming into the world.  John 1: 1-9
I was invited to be a part of a writer’s group a few weeks ago. I was a visitor for the first week. I felt out of place. I didn’t know how this group worked. I didn’t know if I wanted to lay my precious words out in front of them or not.
We sat around the table at our local Starbucks,  and I waited to hear how they critiqued one another’s manuscripts.
From Carole’s rollicking fun southern mystery, full of paunchy sheriffs and snake handling murderers to Mark’s fascinating young adult fantasy—where a girl’s terminal disease becomes personified in an alternative world, and it is up to her to fight its demons in order to be cured— to Martha’s mystery replete with murdering Michigan environmentalists, the manuscripts’ words brought whole new worlds to life.
And, I needn’t have worried. Their comments were full of love and kindness. They treated words like precious delicate gifts. Their goal was to help uncover the living truth of each manuscript.
In my graduate writing seminars at FSU, the writer’s heart was laid on the table for all to pick over. Her manuscript contained her hopes her dreams her fears her delights all carefully contained in 12 cpi Times New Roman with one inch margins.
The creative writers around the table took turns critiquing. And while they could easily have eaten her heart, instead, they carefully– oh so carefully–like surgeons engaged in the most delicate of heart surgeries,  pulled out the bad stuff, and carefully stitched in the good.
They uncovered the light contained in the words.
Our professor, Mark, told us our job was to help the writer see what the best possible version of this manuscript might look like.
Wow! Isn’t that exactly what God is doing with us? Trying to help us find the best possible version of ourselves?
That’s how the light is supposed to work.
As a practicing writer,  I love that God and the Word are synonymous. I love that it is the Word that is life, it is the word that is light. I love that it is the word that brings light to all.
God is in the word. God is the word.
While this truth is powerful for writers, it is also humbling. Carving truth out of words is hard labor. We need a lot of help from our friends.
In the gospel, that’s where John stepped in. He went ahead and smoothed the way so that people would be ready to understand God’s magnificent light and life.
My writer friends wrestle with words. There are words in their hearts and minds that they must get out onto the page so that others can read and understand their messages of hope, of love, of praise for the beauty of this earth.
But it is when we band together as friends and prepare the way for one another that we are truly seeking the light. And some days we even find it.
Today at 1 pm, I will meet with a group of my writer friends. We have read one another’s words, and we have absorbed them into our being. We will be quick to point out the words and sentences and paragraphs and scenes that don’t work. We will do that. We are called to do that. We can’t improve if we don’t. But our goal is to stir the manuscripts into their most flattering light.
And that’s exactly what it takes: a group of friends working together to find the light in the darkness.