After the Symphony

I decided to start journaling for our little one. My mom did this for me and reading her entries as an adult is priceless. Here is an entry from awhile ago: 

October 12, 2008

 Dear Baby,

 As I write this snow is falling and the ground is covered in sheets of white. Peer outside our window and it looks like a snow-globe. It is breathtaking. Your dad and I have never lived in a place where it snows like this, so this is not only your first blizzard, but ours as well. You are only 10 and a half weeks old but already this is one of the first things we will experience together as a family.

 I felt connected to you for the first time last night. Your dad and I went to the symphony after a delicious Thai food dinner (hopefully you will enjoy Asian food as much as we do!). The special guests were folk artists Joe Ungar and Molly Mason. I hadn’t heard music like that in quite sometime-the kind of music that makes your heart swell and brings tears to your eyes. I thought of you, especially when they played this beautiful song called “Harvest Home Suite,” a song that takes one through all the different seasons of the year. I couldn’t help but think how you are a part of us now, and from now on each season we are three.

 “Do you hear the music?” I kept thinking. I hope you did.

 Love,

Mom

Bad News, Good News: Pass it On

Recently I’ve been feeling pretty “blah” – not apathetic, necessarily, but, well, bored, as I told Bryce the other day. I’ve been praying that the Lord would restore unto me the “joy of my salvation”. 

Alfred, our pastor here in Montana, offered the other day that when we find ourselves bored or lacking joy, we should remind ourselves of the bad news – that is, that we are sinners, and our sin runs deeper than we could ever imagine. Not until we understand our own depravity can we understand the redemption we have in Christ (the good news): “but God shows his love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” Yes. This is good news. 

As I’ve tried to ponder on this “bad” news (Lord knows I don’t do it enough) I’ve been humbled by some of Tim Keller’s (pastor of Redeemer Church in NY) thoughts on the matter: 

“So according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things” (Keller, Reason for God). 

I can go on and on about how many good things I turn into ultimate things, instead of making God my “ultimate” – my husband, my friends, my family – all good, but when I worship them instead of worshiping the Lord my God, things get bad. Keller quotes in Reason for God, Ernest Becker, author of Pulitzer Prize winning The Denial of Death: “No human relationship can bear this burden of godhood…If your partner is your ‘All’ then any shortcoming in him becomes a major threat to you.” How true this is, and this should make us turn immediately the opposite direction – that is to the One relationship that deserves our utmost everything, the God, the One who has redeemed us from our deepest sin-ourselves. 

Now that we are having a baby I feel I take all these truths to heart even more, knowing we’ll have to instill them in him or her from an early age. Becker notes that a child’s need for self-worth “is the condition for his life.” If this is the case, then it is of dire importance that we teach our little one that his or her worth comes from the Jesus who loves them, that his or her identity lies in Christ and Christ alone. Not only this, but Bryce and I must model this, and this means not worshiping each other, but Christ.

Faith Be Not Blind

Faith Be Not Blind

 

My faith be not blind

No search in abyss

With eyes squinting tightly

Be not of remiss

 

My faith be not careless

Imprudent or unwise

Lackadaisical nor lax

Be not ill advised

 

My faith be intelligent

Be it sharp as a sword

Be it grounded and wise

And based on the Word.

 

My faith be not fragile

Nor feeble nor frail

But able to stand

In the fiercest of gales

 

My faith be robust

Be it steadfast and sound

Built not on sand

But the most solid of ground

 

My faith be not blind

But stripped of my scales

By power from Him

Pierced for me by the nails