a long day at daycare

I had shed a near tear today as I dropped off my little girl for a big long day of daycare. Well, not daycare but the college dorms. In moments like these, the simple question becomes, “where did the time go?” That’s because like photos in a book next to each other, time is collapsed and moments merge together irrespective of time. Like the difficult times got lost between two bookends of "exceptional."

I am really proud of her. I love the way that we could talk. She even asked me to sit on her bed next to her while she wrote out a list. I love the way that she wanted me to hang around until six hours later I was the one who said, “I’m going to go back to the hotel now.” And I feel like the words that I said to her mattered. Like she was going to remember them.

What to be sure to look at when you become close to a man, and why get serious if you are not ready to get married and why get close to anyone who does not have these two needful things that I told her to look out for and meausre. And when you drink, drink responsibly so you don’t become addicted because it is easier than you think and alcohol is deceitful.

Yesterday she acted differently also when she didn’t stuff as much as she could into the shopping cart but carefully considered her purchases like it was her own money. “Help yourself,” I said. We didn’t find chopsticks at the Target but did see a lot of red shirts and beige pants and helpful people to assist. Need to get a CD player. And a photo book to put all the pictures that she carried along with her. And there in the dorm room today went up the picture of the six of us, on her wooden-appearing desk in the dorm room.

"I've decided I like my hair and its waves and the way they fall in front of my face."

"You are unique. You can point to the planet and know where you came from because there is only one place in the world with wavy, reddish blond hair and freckles." She pulled it back and put in the hair tie with satisfaction. "I'm American. I'll claim no other roots."

“Did you bring a Bible?” She wasn’t sure how to answer. Nodded yes, then switched it to a no. I told her how to find the Bible on line.

In the end, she walked away without hugging me, but I will see her in a couple of days and then I won’t see her for many months. Hugging would have been too difficult.

She is young and beautiful and has enough to carry herself through because God is faithful and He will be carrying her. He’ll do it for me.

“You’re preaching to the choir, Mom” she said to me when I told her one more time about Creation and how evolution is not scientifically logical or sound.

Time flew away these past 18 years but God holds the wind.

Shaking

“Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service of reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28).”
There were many things wrong that set me up for The Big Fall. Like a lifetime of investing myself into what other people thought. Like thinking that little societal world in which I live reflects reality. Not being like Hillary Clinton who said, “There’s this vast right wing conspiracy out there.” Take out the word “right wing.”
Swing back to my sixth grade experience. That earthquake changed the course of my life. It was more of an earthquake in slow motion – a writhing experience of muscle being pulled away from bone over a few years actually. When the world said, “This is who you are” and my head shouted, “No, you are all idiots. This is who I am.” But I was not strong enough compared to everyone else. Not to my school, my neighborhood, my mom, dad and brother. So I guessed they were right. And everything was all mixed up then. (But today I have on my desk two pieces of data. The first is a little card that says, “Be yourself. Who else is better qualified?” And a card that says, “You are who God says you are.” The second card begins a list which starts out, “heavenly positioned.” Yeah, that is my reality but I got to keep it before me or I forget.)
In 1994 I had an experience in which a set of two supervisors kind of had it out for me. It was the weirdest experience. Or I suppose I should say the second weirdest experience. Since that four month experience was nestled into a great span of years of success, the bulk of the years were favorable and my career just had a blip in the road. Still, they kind of trashed my reputation a bit and left a lingering doubt for years to come. I just sort-of hid away for a while and came out again when it was better. However, right away, as soon as I aligned myself to God’s will, He began blessing me again and restored everything to me. But I was a changed person and for the better. But it was very painful as God literally changed my personality over a 40 day period (I counted).
Returning to present. What has happened these past weeks and how it pulled in events of the past 15 months is like nothing I have seen or experienced in all my little brief life. Yet in some ways this experience is not so hard on me personally. But then it is too. It is embarrassing. It is humbling and humiliating. It is discouraging. It feels so defeating.
It feels defeating because everyone is going by a different set of rules than reality. And after a while you sound like a conspiratist and a fool. Like Hillary. Didn’t she sound foolish that day on the Today show. Vast right wing conspiracy, right.
I need to trust God for protecting us. He is just and controls all things. Like those poor people who live in China and can’t have babies or go to church because of their government. Does God not hear those people’s prayers? Yes He does but He is doing things His own way.
God is not accountable to me for what He does. Here is a passage from Hebrews:
Hbr 12:3
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hbr 12:4
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
Hbr 12:5
and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM;
Hbr 12:6
FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES."
Hbr 12:7
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom {his} father does not discipline?
Hbr 12:8
But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Hbr 12:9
Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
Hbr 12:10
For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He {disciplines us} for {our} good, so that we may share His holiness.
See God is training me to share in His holiness. The discipline I am getting is not that I really have done anything wrong. Nothing other than a child who lives on a busy street needs to learn not to run out into it.
The Big Fall is because I am playing in the busy street and taking rides from strangers. So what I need to do is work where I work and do what I do. Pray the way I pray and walk the way I walk. Continue steadfastly. Endure with patience and then. Then. Then remember, I am learning to share in His holiness because I am going to receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Mat 5:10
"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:11
"Blessed are you when {people} insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Mat 5:12
"Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

And in that kingdom there is reward.
But how do they know they are persecuting? It’s called lying to their consciences. They know. The liars who started the whole panic. And on purpose or else just warped and can’t see five feet in front of themselves.
I need to show gratitude and from that position. Thanksgiving. Then I offer an acceptable service unto God with reverence and awe. And leave the pieces to Him and allow Him space to work. Not get in a panic myself. Rather, get myself out of this panic.
I can be thankful because I am not of the world that is going to shake and fall and will end one day. I am of God’s kingdom and will be translated from this present age to that world in reality one day when I die. And in the mean time I live in that world by faith, and also as Ephesians says,
Eph 1:18
{I pray that} the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
Eph 1:19
and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. {These are} in accordance with the working of the strength of His might
Eph 1:20
which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly {places,}
Eph 1:21
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
Eph 1:22
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
Eph 1:23
which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
I live by faith and by reality in that world of God’s Son. So I will do what I am instructed in Hebrews:
Hbr 12:11
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Hbr 12:12
Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,
Hbr 12:13
and make straight paths for your feet, so that {the limb} which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
Because indeed, as Hebrews also says, I am in need of endurance. And let me just wrap up my little personal Bible Study and counseling session by the Holy Spirit with myself with these words:
Hbr 12:26
And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, "YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN."
Hbr 12:27
This {expression,} "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Hbr 12:28
Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;
Hbr 12:29
for our God is a consuming fire.
Blessings to you!