Blogging to Bless

My apologies for an extended hiatus.  Life has been very busy!  This past weekend was a combination of celebrating the blessing of freedom that we have in this country, as well as the blessing of seven years of wedded bliss for Jon and me.  Originally when we planned our wedding for July 3rd, it was a matter of convenience and availability with the added benefits of Independence Day festivities.  This year I reflected on the significance of celebrating the two together.

There is such freedom in love.  When one is pursuing love, it seems wise to be cautious of how we reveal ourself.  We are certain to look our best and act our best, laying out evidences for worthiness.  We read into the actions of our love interest to interpret their level of desire for us, and attempt to reflect the same, hiding feelings that may indicate more out of fear of scaring them off.  There are times when I get lost in years of journal entries and that angst of love not yet requited seems still so fresh.  The feeling that I remember most was being so bottled up with love for Jon while he was off in that male world of oblivion.  What I really wanted was not his love in return but just opportunity to express the immense love that was building up for him.  I longed for that freedom to tell him how I felt and to serve him in love.

But there are always those games of pursuit first, right?  Perhaps that is why, when love is in grasp, you suddenly feel so free to let go of all those appearances and dig deep into the heart of the person.  When I was finally able to show Jon the love that I had for him (and he finally realized that he felt likewise), our worlds exploded with the freedom of just being who we are.  Isn’t that the best part of love- waking up with messy hair in an old t-shirt that you are only now discovering was splattered with spit-up the night before and knowing it does not affect one ounce of love the person next to you feels.  1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear…”  Those days of fearing that I would lose Jon by turning him off with one bad hair day or one ill-received gesture are gone.

Freedom in love is a wonderful thing, but there is much responsibility.  Though Jon has expressed his love for me even when I am at my worst, I have a loving desire to please him and be at my best.  Not that I feel his love for me is dependent on it, but because the freedom to love him is so enjoyable.  I love to make him smile, to be a part of his happiness.  So it is in the freedom of love that I serve him.  It is opportunity, not obligation, that rolls me out of bed in the morning to make him breakfast and pack his lunch and send him off with a kiss.  It is opportunity that drives me to spend his hard-earned money wisely and keep our home as orderly as possible.  And he is quick to find opportunity to remind me of the love he serves as well.

Psalm 119:32 says, “I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.”  At first glance the language seems almost contradictory.  If one is under the command of another, we rarely consider them free by today’s interpretation of the word.  The verse makes me visualize someone running through a wooded path with the freedom to steer off the course, but a desire to stay on the path someone laid out before them.  It is clear to the runner that the path was laid out in love, a means of safe travels through an otherwise treacherous terrain.  Perhaps the runner could explore other options, but in following the path there is freedom in every step for the path has already been laid and he has no worries of hurdling fallen trees and tangled vines.  His feet are light down the path that has already been laid.  The designer has promised a safe arrival and the runner is free to follow.

What freedom we have in Christ to follow the path He has laid out for us!  It is love that drives us down that path of service in His name.  And we are free to love because He first loved us.  He drove out those fears of unworthiness by making our worthiness known to us when He died on the cross for us.  God made the first move in declaring His love for us so that we could have the freedom to love Him in return.  Let that love drive you down the path He has forged for you; one that promises success and arrival at your Heavenly home.  It is your choice to serve Christ in love, but your heart will be set free from the burdens of this world if you anchor it to Christ.

By far the most chaotic time for my family is Sunday morning as we are preparing for church.  Trying to make it out the door on time with everyone preened and primped is quite the feat with three children who do not sense urgency.

We were doing considerably well this Sunday.  Everyone was gathered at the door for the final stage of adorning shoes and heading out.  It seemed necessary to Mary at that moment to investigate a coffee cup left on the counter.  Of course the coffee cup was not empty and in order for her to do a thorough examination with the counter still inches above her head, the coffee cup had to be lifted with a flipping motion that sent its contents (thankfully well-cooled at this point) in a wash over her beautiful sundress.  In a flurry of unplanned activity, I stripped her, ran the soiled dress upstairs to soak, pulled a fresh dress from the closet, sat her on the potty before we had any other unwanted incidents, and sent Jon out to at least get two children loaded in the vehicle.  I retrieved Mary from the bathroom and rushed to put her shoes on which had been left by the kitchen door.

Or had they?  “Jon!”  I yell dramatically from the window, “Where are her shoes?!”  Exasperated, he responds, “I put them right in front of the bathroom door!  How could you have missed them?!”  Indeed, there they were, placed so strategically in front of the bathroom door that he was wise to think not a person could miss them, much less avoid tripping over them.  But I was not looking for her shoes at the bathroom door.  I knew to look for them at the kitchen door where I had left them.  I was so mission-minded as I launched out of the bathroom, Mary on my hip, I overlooked them.

After His resurrection, Jesus was not immediately recognized by Mary at the tomb.  She thought He was a gardener.  It was not until He spoke her name that she realized with whom she had been conversing.  I have often wondered what took her so long to figure it out.  The shoes were a little revelation for me.  She was not looking for Jesus alive; she was looking for a dead body.  She had seen Him laid in the tomb on Friday so she was not expecting anything else but a dead body when she got there.

I wonder how often we overlook Jesus in our own life.  How many times have we blown out the door with a mission for our day, stepping right over that Jesus-moment in our life, not even seeing it?  What miracles have been undiscovered, written off as coincidence?  What inconvenience was really God at our doorstep with opportunity?

Perhaps we are so busy with our own plans for our life, that we look for Jesus only in the areas where we left Him.  “Hey Jesus!  Good to see you at church- I’ll be calling you for my next tragedy!  Thanks for being there!”  And off we go, not expecting to find God working in our everyday life, so we miss those moments when He makes His Will obvious to us.

What are we to do then?  In my life where I am bustling about tending to needs all day, how do I make certain I do not miss God?  James 1:22-25 advises, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it- he will be blessed in what he does.”  To recap – read God’s Word, apply it to your life, and be blessed!

I think prayer is the most certain way to open the door for God to make Himself known in your life.  Beginning your day in prayer will route your thoughts toward God.  If you invite Him to join you in your day, you will be sure to be looking for Him when He takes you up on that invitation.  No more stepping over God in your doorway- time to get in step with Him!      

I had no idea the effect parenting would have on my spirituality.  Though I never intended this blog to be a regular comparison and confession of my day to day interactions with my children, it seems that is what God’s intentions are for it.  I look at my children and feel inspired.  I know what I, a sinful being, desire for them and through that I can see what God in His perfect love longs for us, His children.

Colette is a child with a strong will and an intelligence that leaves me dumbfounded.  There are times where I feel so unprepared to raise someone of her nature and capabilities.  I daydream about her future; her potential to turn this world on its axis.  If I see this in my own child, what must God see in each of us- He who designed us with a specific purpose?  I can only imagine what Colette will become, but God knows what He has in store for her.

As parents, Jon and I will play a huge role in our children’s outcome.  To understand my influence in the molding of their character- how I encourage them, how I coddle them, how I teach them and what I model for them- often leaves me overwhelmed.  What I desire for Colette, Mary, and Julia is love, security, a clear sense of right and wrong, and most importantly, a solid faith in Christ.  What pains me is knowing they will likely go through trials to achieve these things, just as I did.  And what worries me even more is that they will not always make the right decision.  I will not be able to protect them from every decision that they make.  Were I to shelter them from these fears, they would likely never end up with the qualities I so desire for them.  The responsibility of guiding them with enough influence, yet allowing enough freedom for development, is a balancing act I have not mastered.  Has any parent?

Even now as I watch Colette and Mary make little kid decisions with small impacts, I hurt for them when they are unhappy with the results.  Yes, Mary decided in the moment that refusing to eat green beans was a good idea, but when everyone else is eating ice cream, those big tears make a mother’s heart ache. The truth is I want her to have the ice cream.  I love blessing my children, watching them delight in an act of kindness and love.  But, as a mother who is deeply concerned about raising her children to understand responsibility for their actions, I know that withholding the ice cream is the most loving thing I can do.  I am always going to love my children and I will always desire to be a blessing to them and to shower them with blessings, but there is a time for everything.  Sometimes, there is a time for withholding blessings.

Our loving Father in Heaven has a storehouse of blessings waiting to rain down on us.  But as a good and just Father, He also will wisely choose when to shower those blessings.  He will always love us, but He cannot bless us when we walk outside of His Will.  It is the basic concept of parenting.  We use reward charts to communicate the concept to our children.  Is it any surprise that our Father in Heaven looks forward to rewarding us when we walk in His ways?

Psalm 37:4-5 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this…”  That’s quite the promise for those who choose to walk this way, the path that He has carved for you.

Note to self: “The Lord disciplines those He loves, as a father the son he delights in.”  Proverbs 3:12.  I might need this one stamped on my forehead as a friendly reminder every time I look in the mirror.  The experts say that children actually want boundaries, despite their nature to constantly cross the border.  Yesterday Jon was consoling Mary after she was disciplined for not assisting with clean-up.  He explained to her that our bad decisions can result in consequences.  Looking for Colette’s support as an expert in the area of making bad decisions, Jon asked, “Colette, tell Mary- are consequences good or bad?”

Colette quickly responded, “Good because they help us learn to act better.”  It was not the answer he was seeking, but it certainly made us smile.  I found it comforting that Colette appreciated the need of the boundaries we have been reinforcing so regularly.  She can be very strong-willed and there are days that end in exhaustion and frustration because I feel like I have been on her case all day.  I try to end the day with a reassuring hug and assert that we will have a better day tomorrow.  And we usually do.

Parenting is like making an investment in your child.  Often I can feel the battle brewing- the sigh when asked to pick up her toys or the nose crinkling at the sight of an unwelcome dinner entree.  It is in that moment where I have to make a decision of what my approach will be.  I could choose to conserve my energy and time and let her do as she would please.  Honestly, there are times where I feel too weary and just want to avoid altercation, but to consider the longterm ramifications discourages me.

When you decide to make a financial investment for your future, the initial steps of setting aside money can be very difficult.  There are sacrifices that need to be made and habits that need to be changed.  If you focus on the goal of a financially stable future, all of the struggle is necessary and good, though it may not be enjoyable.  Likewise, the sacrifices that we are called to in parenting, though not all enjoyable, are necessary and good.  If I invest time and thought in my child now, the future will reveal an individual who is well-adjusted to a world of boundaries and expectations.  Caring enough now, means caring for their future.  Somehow children recognize that and are drawn to structure and discipline.

I say “somehow,” but I believe it was God’s good design.  Because the Lord loves us, we should expect His discipline when we fall out of line.  And we should be grateful for it.  It is good to consider God’s discipline in our lives, and what He is revealing to us through it.  Have you been put in a “time-out” with a life that seems stalled, because you have not done what the Father has asked of you?  Perhaps you are still nursing a “spanking” for doing something dangerous.  Or have you lost privileges to a toy because you did not play responsibly or refused to share?  Maybe the analogy makes you giggle a little, but truly Our God is a loving God with expectations for His children’s behavior and He is a master of behavior modification.

God knows that His discipline can cause you to scowl and question His goodness and mercy, but just as it is love that causes me to correct my children’s poor behavior, so it is His love that He offers in the discipline of His children.  Colette and Mary may not always be able to comprehend that it is love that drives me to enforce rules and expectations.  There are regular events in our household that attest to their unwillingness to admit that I know what is better for their future than they do.  What about you?  Can you see the love of your Father in His discipline?  Do you submit to it because you trust that He knows what is best for your eternal future or are you resistant?  Consider your next consequence as an opportunity to learn from a good and gracious God, one who is investing in your future.        

When you are a mommy of three small children and not the most organized individual, your home may appear to have been ransacked to the onlooker… which is why I often draw my blinds… and panic when the doorbell rings.  Just this morning I asked Colette to fold up clothes that she had decided against wearing and put them back in her dresser.  She reminded me in a very logical argument that my own closet had a pile of clothes on the floor, as she edged a tangle of shirts, skirts and tights into the closet with her toe and attempted to close the door.  

Yesterday was a beautiful day… outside.  Inside, it got kind of ugly.  I had every intention of spending as much time outside as possible.  As required for the sanity of the entire household, Mary was placed in bed for nap in the afternoon.  Colette and I worked on school work and some household projects, all the while taunted by the sunshine flooding through the windows.  Mary kept sleeping.  It had been two hours of Colette patiently waiting for the moment she was given permission to burst out into freedom and fresh air.  “Mommy, can I pleeeeease just go outside by myself?” she finally pleaded.

I responded gently, sympathetically, assuringly, as nicely as I possibly could break the news that we would have to wait until Mary woke up so that I could go out with her.  Apparently it did not matter how I informed her.  She exploded.  “You don’t even make any sense!  I don’t think you’re my real mom!”  I was dumbfounded and caught off guard. I calmly informed her that she was not allowed to talk to me like that and told her she would have to stand facing the wall until she was ready to discuss her feelings in a friendlier fashion.  She did not respond well to that.  It lead to another string of hurtful words.  “You don’t even love me!” she accused, “I don’t think you even want me!”

Never has she said anything like this before.  I wondered where her words came from.  Did she really feel this way?  And I cried at the thought that a child I had spent the last 4 years loving and serving could possibly feel this way.  When she calmed down, I told her that it was because I loved her that I could not let her go outside by herself at the risk of danger.  But how do you tell a child that you are protecting them from dangers you don’t want to have to explain to her exist?  There are evils of this world I am not ready to reveal to her, so I keep her under safe shelter until I feel she is ready to hear that not all people have her best interest at heart, as her mommy does.  What she is ignorant of is precisely an evidence of my love, but to her, it seemed a blatant demonstration of a love that was lacking.  How could a loving mommy deny a child the very thing that she pines for and finds pure bliss in?  I know the logic is beyond her.

Is God’s logic beyond you?  How often have you found yourself doubting the love of a Father who has laid down His life for you because you have been denied something you have longed for, prayed for, even begged for?  As a parent, we often find ourselves in the precarious position of following through with a decision that we know has an eventual outcome of betterment for the child, but in the meantime causes the child sorrow.  We cling to that cliche “someday you will understand,” and hope that someday, they will.  But we live in fear of those words uttered in the heated moments; we worry that the child, in ignorance, will doubt our love.

There are moments in our life when we will feel like we have dropped out of the realm of God’s love.  It will feel like He is purposefully denying us of pleasures and we cannot comprehend what good can from it.  Like a child, we are often so consumed by our desires that we cannot view the greater work at hand.  All Colette could see was sunshine and happiness when she gazed longingly out the window, unaware of the many harms from which I need to protect her.  And as a mother, it is my job to ask for her trust, when I cannot explain to her why I do the things that I do.  It is my hope that I spend enough time demonstrating my love in understandable ways, so that she can trust in that love when she does not understand.

In the very moment Colette was doubting my love, I was exercising it.  In love, I could not appease her desires, knowing that it could lead to harm.  Do you trust that your God knows a lot more than you do?
God asks us to trust when we cannot understand.  He will not always choose to explain why He allows some suffering in our life or denies some pleasures.  True faith is exposed in those times.  Faith is having hope in that which is unknown.  Philippians 4:7 promises, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  What this means is we can and should find peace in God even when we may not understand the trials we are facing.  We forget that we are children of God, in need of parenting by Our Heavenly Father.  Be still and know that He is God.

In fourth grade, everybody was on a level playing field.  I had lots of friends and assumed I was just a likable person.  In fifth grade, five elementary schools poured into one middle school.  It seemed instinctual as ranking began.  I was miserable; nerdy and alone.  Who would have thought that the girl with large pink plastic glasses with yellow and blue confetti imbedded in the frames wouldn’t fit in?  At the end of the school year, the glasses were destroyed in a fortunate jump roping accident.

Freed of the weight of a poor fashion choice, I felt this was my opportunity to come back from the summer and wow my fellow peers.  The month of August was left to plotting that ever-so important first day of school outfit.  Then as if fate brought us together, I stumbled upon the accessory that would set me apart from my adoring fans.  There at Big Lots, passed over by the cool people of this world despite drastic markdowns on the regular department store shelves, I found ridiculously large plastic (when will plastic finally be cool???) bright purple clip-on earrings.  They were a dollar.  They were, in my mind, perfect.
 
Having received permission from my mother, I made my purchase with the hope that my future of popularity was secured.  The car ride home I drew pictures of myself wearing my grape diamond-shaped earrings.  Would they be best set off by a high ponytail, a cascade of curls pulled over one shoulder, or perhaps a side ponytail?  I chose the high ponytail, determining that it was the best way to draw all attention to the atrocities I had fallen in love with.  If only I knew.

Fate placed Alice behind me in the lunch line-up.  The high ponytail revealed the clips of my earrings.  My mother did not allow us to pierce our ears until we were 13.  My peers had more lenient parents.  Alice cleverly sang, “Clip-on, clip-off!” to the tune of the Clapper commercial and drew the class’s attention to my only-now-apparent fashion faux-pas.  The whole class joined.  They clapped and giggled.  I slowly pulled each earring off the once proud lobes, knowing that I had again secured myself in the ranks of Nerd-dom.  Oh were I never to have found those earrings or had settled on wearing my hair down, hiding the clips from the masses who clearly were just jealous of my earrings and needed to find some flaw to feel validated.

Thus began a middle school career of trying to get people to like me, and never quite getting why my mom’s sister’s bright red corduroy bib overalls were a big, fat fail or why you would not want to be friends with the girl who had all of the answers in class and handed in ten page papers when the requirement was for two.  It was not until high school that I embraced my identity as the nerdy-and-loving-it-type.  It was a long haul trying to find a place in this world that I was comfortable with and that was comfortable with me.

Now that middle school is only a painful distant memory, I can accept that Alice’s mean-spirited outburst was simply an attempt like my own to be wanted, needed, loved.  It is what we are all looking for.  God designed us with the need to interact with and to love others.  Few humans ignore this desire.  But many make poor choices in their attempt to fulfill that need.  I suppose we all have our own stories of popularity contest flops, even the popular girls who were just better at hiding their desire to still play house when they were in seventh grade.

I look back at fifth-through-eighth-grade-Katie and she just makes me sad.  At times I wish the older, wiser me could go back in time and coach her not to emblazon with silver puffy paint the nickname “Chinsy” on her sixth grade camp ball cap.  But the sorrow does not come from reflecting on an embarrassing history, but in knowing that a little girl spent years ignorant to God’s delight in what He was creating.  He was molding me then and He is molding me now.  Life’s difficulties and rejections that often seem so empty of love, are just opportunities for Him to fill us up with all of His good love.

It took years of poorly plotted superficial decisions to break me down, before I sought the one love that mattered.  I used to think that no one could love me until I learned to love myself, but I think we all know that we are at times very unloveable.  I made some very unloveable decisions toward friends, just so I could move up the popularity ranks.  But discovering a God who could love me right where I was, in the midst of unloveable sins, was the only way I learned to love others, even those that were the demise of my social life.  And when I was able to love others and forgive others- to offer them something of value and not just attempt to dazzle them- I finally discovered my own self worth.

“We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19  We are all worthy of God’s love.  Go fill up on it until it overflows to others.  There are a lot of desperate people in need of it.

Tis the season for Doubting Thomas sermons.  It seems we celebrate Easter and the joy of knowing our Risen Lord and then start “tsk-tsking” Thomas because he did not immediately accept the truth.  It’s rare that the disciple Thomas’ name comes up without the prefix “doubting.”

Thomas was not present when the resurrected Jesus made an appearance to all of the other disciples.  They saw first-hand the wounds from the nails and His pierced side.  Afterwards they told Thomas about their encounter and Thomas honestly said, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it.”  (John 20:25)  Thomas was asking for nothing more than what the other disciples had the privilege of already seeing.  It was a whole week later when Jesus appeared to the disciples again, this time with Thomas present, and Jesus addressed Thomas personally by asking him to place his hand in His side and touch His nail-marked hand.  Jesus commanded him to, “Stop doubting and believe!” to which Thomas proclaims, “My Lord and My God!”

I wonder what was going through Thomas’ mind that whole week where he struggled with doubt while the other disciples rejoiced at the resurrection of Christ.  While he was filled with doubt, his comrades were at peace.  Did he feel guilty that he could not take his friends at their word?  Was he angry or jealous that Christ chose to make His appearance when Thomas was not there?  Did He consider why God was making it more difficult for him to come to belief than the others?

Certainly if Thomas had been present for the first appearance, He would have believed.  Note that it did not take any coercion on Christ’s part for Thomas to accept belief once he saw Him.  So why did God choose to reveal Christ to the other disciples first and allow Thomas to struggle with doubt for a whole week before He had the same revelation?  When Thomas professed his belief, Jesus responds, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (vs. 29).”  Did not the other disciples only believe because they witnessed the Risen Lord also?

During my brief time at college I befriended a very faithful Christian named Ruth.  It was a period of time that my own faith was being threatened.  I was struggling with a lot of the challenging questions about Christianity, like the existence of Hell and Satan, why God made us, how did I really know the Bible was true and had not been changed over time, and where did evolution fall into play with the story of creation.  I remember presenting a lot of these questions to Ruth and she responded that she had not ever considered most of those thoughts and was not concerned with knowing the answers because she had a solid relationship with God who had made Himself known to her.  Because of the evidence He had placed in her life of His goodness, she had no reason to doubt Him on the things He called her to believe in that others might find difficult.

I thought it was preposterous!  How could someone believe without having all of the answers?  I wondered why God didn’t make it easy for me to just believe.  Why did I have questions that others were not asking?  I wanted to hold onto my belief, but I was afraid if I explored my questions anymore I would be lead away from what I had always identified as the truth.  Why didn’t God just reveal Himself to me in a blatant manner so I didn’t have to struggle with belief?  I felt like outside of a bold revelation, I had to turn my mind off to continue in belief.  But being of a more curious nature than your average two year old, this was not something I was capable of doing.  I felt denied of a peace for which I was desperately in want.

Have you been there?

I wonder if this is how Thomas felt.  It feels like a rejection from a God you are not certain you believe in.  You want to make demands to a God you don’t quite believe in, so that you might believe.  But doesn’t asking for proof reveal at least some level of belief?  I knew I believed in a God, because I had some evidence of Him in my life, but I didn’t know how far to take that belief.  Did I take it all the way to Jesus?  Thomas had witnessed Jesus’ miracles- the blind came to sight, the weather and elements responded to His commands, the dead raised to life- but how far did He take the belief in the power of the man he had followed for three years?  Can the dead raise themselves to life?

Doubt is not something openly talked about among Christians because our faith’s core value is… well, faith.  It is by grace that we have been saved, through faith, not by works or goodness.  It’s our faith that saves us.  So if we have doubts, are we not saved?  It is a pretty terrifying situation to admit you are in, especially among your Christian friends and family.  So we tend to keep our mouths shut and hope that at some point we will happen upon the answers to questions that keep us up at night.

Did God reject Thomas because He professed doubt?  Quite the contrary!  And that is the good news of this story.  And that is why I believe Thomas was not there for the initial appearance.  Jesus had a message for all of those who struggle with unbelief.  “Bring it to me!” He says.  Thomas did not desert his

The truth is during my time of doubt, I was not attending church regularly, was not praying, and was not reading the Bible.   The truth is I wasn’t really seeking God.  The truth is I was seeking my wisdom to be my God.  What I could reason, must be truth and if that reason brought me to God, so be it.  The problem is faith can not be faith if all of the questions are answered.  It would be knowledge.  God calls us to faith in Him so that we will come to knowledge of Him.

Proverbs 2:1-6 “My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.  For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.”   Accepting His words at His word is the first step of faith and knowledge comes to follow.

As you begin any new relationship, but especially a romantic one, you are placing faith in that individual as you grow in knowledge of that individual.  I was smitten with Jonathan upon our first interaction, but it was faith in a character of goodness not yet revealed that allowed us to begin a relationship.  As I got to know him more, I had more and more evidence of character qualities that I adored.  God is asking you to enter into a relationship with Him so that He can reveal to you His qualities of being a faithful and good God, one Who loves you so much, He stopped at nothing, not even the rejection and death of His own Son to prove it to you.

The evidence is all there, but are you looking at it?  If you are not going to God for truth, who do you expect to find it from?  Man?  With all of our faults and biases and flawed reasoning?

Right after the story of Thomas is told, we find this verse, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”  That was written for Doubting Katie.  The Bible is for those evidence seekers- the ones who need to see the nail marks and the pierced side.  Have you read it?  Or are you afraid your doubt won’t stand a chance once you do…  

When Jon broke up with me, I could feel it in my chest; this weight interfering with the natural rhythms.  I was filled with sorrow and considered the damage done irreparable.  To my juvenile eyes it seemed a perfect love and it could never be perfect again.  In the midst of my grief, it appeared to me that there was no point in hope, because nothing, not even Jon attempting to reverse what he had done, would return me to a perfect state of trust and love.  I feared I could not love him wholly were he to admit his mistake.  More than losing him, my suffering was caused from losing hope in what I had believed to be true.

For those of you who have read the beginnings of this blog, you know the ending of this story.  All was not lost.  From one of the hardest points of my life, God created a beautiful storyline that involved God strengthening my Christian walk so that I could assist Jon in his journey.  Had Jon and I stayed together, I know we would be weaker individuals than we are today.

No one likes a spoiler to a good story.  We like to ease into the plot, get familiar with the characters, experience the emotions of their struggle and perseverance, and find ourselves pleasantly surprised at the end.  Having grown up in the church, I have always known the “ending” (really, is it not the beginning?) of the story of Jesus.  He died on the cross, was buried and rose again.  So simply put and knowing the ending at the beginning of the story prohibits a full contemplation of the struggle.

It’s Saturday.  Jesus died yesterday.  His disciples had left homes and families to follow Him.  They had watched His ministry grow.  They had witnessed His miracles.  They saw Lazarus and others raised from the dead.  They had called Him the Messiah.

It’s Saturday.  He is dead and they are scared.  Though they had witnessed the dead rise to life at the power of their Teacher, they cannot consider anything but that His death is final.  No logic can justify hope.  Jesus is dead.  They had watched Him escape murderous crowds, but Thursday night He gave Himself over to them.  Did Jesus just give up?  He was a man of power and miracles and He is dead.

It’s Saturday.  Mary has never known sorrow like this.  And fear.  She had brought forth a baby though she was a virgin and had heard the promise from an angel that His kingdom would have no end.  But He is dead.  Did you lie, God?  Did I misunderstand?  Did you desert us?  She wonders at a faith that had been built by partaking in miracles, but the Miracle is dead.

You and I know that all was not lost on Saturday.  Sunday was coming.  But that Saturday must have seemed like the most hopeless day in all history.  He was dead.  They had treated His body with spices for burial and laid Him in a tomb.  Logic could not lead them to hope.

But it doesn’t have to be logical, does it?  “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 1:26.  He is the God of things inconceivable, the God of things not hoped for.

Perhaps you are in the midst of a Saturday, left without any hope.  He is the God for the hopeless.  Your mind cannot conceive, but His can.  Logic will not lead you there, but He will.  It’s Saturday.  Yes, but your Sunday is coming.