"No Charge Today"--and Free Grace

"No charge today," the receptionist announced pleasantly as I pulled my wallet out of my purse in preparation to pay the bill at the doctor's office. 

I stared at Jonathan, and he stared at the receptionist.

"Tell him thank you," Jonathan said quietly.

The receptionist nodded and stood up. 

All we could do was be grateful and leave.

The doctor is one that Jonathan has worked for recently, and Jonathan was able to get me in for a checkup about my chest pain. 

My heart checked out okay, and even the EKG came back fine.

I almost wished it hadn't. 

Then there would be something concrete--a reason for this pain.

Then everyone around me would sympathize and help take care of me and maybe even babysit my kids.

You can explain a heart attack.

How do you explain heartache?

 But the doctor didn't even charge us. 

Perhaps he understood heartache--most people do. 

The pain seems to be either a result of yanking something too hard while cleaning up a few days ago,

or stress.

 The doctor and nurse both had been so friendly and kind,

answered our questions, given advice.

I drove slowly away in the autumn sunshine, still with the pressure and hurt in my chest at times,

but contemplating the "No charge today."

Like the "free grace" the Bible study teacher had talked about on the radio broadcast on the way in.

"Amazing Grace" is the hymn on this laser-printed fabric in the quilt shop I ran into for a few minutes in Colby, KS, while Jonathan went to Walmart to get an air filter for his truck 

on our way home from Missouri. 

"Free Grace."

You get a doctor's advice and care for free--because he cares.

And then there is God's free grace--because He loves us and made us and nothing can separate us from His love.

And so I drove home, stopping to pick up some needed groceries,

and trying to put my trust in the Lord regarding not just the mysterious pain but the weights upon my mind..

And there is this subtle temptation to turn to shopping to try to forget what's bothering you.

So you just let Him know, "Lord, I'm trusting in You, not in shopping."  

And then you do shop, and but you are not trusting in it to make yourself happy.

And God blesses you with lots of marked down sourdough bread--

so much easier for me to digest lately than the regular.

And as you go about the store, you face another subtle temptation--to turn to food to help yourself feel better.

And you answer that one the same way--"No!

My trust is in the Lord, not in food."

And of course you put food into your cart, even a few marked down doughnuts or bran muffins or apple cinnamon chip cookies--

but you aren't trusting in food or sweets or chocolate to get you over the hump.

On the way home, you stop for just a few moments by a lakeside
to get out by the water and the ducks and pray.
You put your burden into His hands, and pray for guidance,
and thank Him for grace.

And you come home and you need a hot meal, and the girls are putting leftovers away,

but there is still some leftover potato/corn chowder I made yesterday,

which was oh, so good!

And so no, you don't trust in food to self-soothe, but God provides it for you like He did for Elijah,

and your angels are your own daughters, and you eat with gratitude the hot

and comforting bowl of soup.  

"Thank You, Lord, for this nourishing soup--just what I needed!

But remember, I'm trusting in You!"

 And sometimes there is the temptation to turn to work to try to forget what is eating at you.

Lessons to check, food to cook, the fridge needs cleaned, veggies need picked before the freeze tonight, laundry put away, waste baskets emptied, stuff sorted in the office, schoolwork to finish, 

spelling test to give, floors to sweep or vacuum. 

But no, you work because it is your duty, but  you don't trust in it to help you feel better. 

You trust in the Lord.

 The children had some western gospel songs playing in the CD player as I ate lunch, 

and the words touched me,

and yes, music refreshes and comforts and blesses,

but, God, it is in You  I put my trust, not in music.

 And unfortunately there is also the temptation to lash out and swat at someone like we swat flies on the wall.

You're hurting so you take it out on someone--maybe your child, maybe your parent, 

maybe your spouse, maybe someone else, maybe myself, maybe even the dog or cat--or rooster. (Danny brought a rooster inside this morning and was that ever funny as it flapped and squawked in his arms!)

 Maybe there's even the temptation to swat at God.

Yeah, I know what that feels like.

Instead, we just say quietly,
"Lord, I'm trusting in You."

You refuse to swat at God.

He has promised  to work all things for good if we love Him.

That includes this.

Cider Pressing--and What It Means to Die Daily

Last week the children got their wish when their daddy agreed to spend the day taking them apple picking in Denver at two places where there were free apples. (More on that later.)

And then Thursday afternoon and evening we set up the cider press that my sister's family had left for us, and we had a few friends in and pressed cider.

On the front porch, we ladies and girls cut the apples into quarters and cut out any really bad spots.

The boys and their dads kept the apples shredding in the shredder on the sidewalk,

and then wrapped the shredded apple in tough cheesecloth, 

placed those bundles of apple between layers of wooden slats,

and then compressed it with a compressor.

After those friends left, we had a quick supper, and then started all over again with other friends.

And night fell.

And it got chilly.

And the knives continued to quarter,

and the shredder to shred,

and the compressor to press until nothing was left but pulp--

and cider. 

Nothing like fresh pressed apple cider!

These half gallon jars went to our home schooling friends who helped us for a couple hours.

Sweet, sweet, rich cider.
The children couldn't stop drinking that stuff.
They slurped and slurped,
and we shared it out with our friends, this one and that.
Apples are great, but a lot of apple is core, skin, pulp, and,
oh, yeah, worms and yucky black stuff around the worms. 

You get rid of that stuff when you press cider.

 The apple is gone when the cider comes streaming out of the spigot.

The apple died,

and the cider comes pouring out.

 

Joni Erickson Tada reminds us that the Gospel "tells me to daily take up my cross and die to self..."

She wrote, "I call it an interior crucifixion. An inside slaying of anxiety, doubt, or fear – for me, it’s dying to thoughts like, what if my pain gets worse? Will I be able to live like this for the rest of my life?! God, this isn’t really your will for me… is it?!

It’s not something God asks us to do occasionally.

We are to pick up our cross daily because a cross-filled life is made up of many cross-filled days....

And I will tell you a secret.

As I’ve practiced taking up my cross – that heavy, hard thing in my life – I have fallen in love with Jesus through a deeper, sweeter, more intimate union with Him, the crucified Christ.

Living day by day in the fellowship of sharing with His sufferings, I discover a side of Jesus that perhaps many people don’t see – at least people who shun the distasteful duty of dying to themselves.

Yet God shares His intimacy on His terms; and those terms call for us to, in some measure, suffer as His precious Son did...

"Our culture hates that sort of stuff. It will do everything it can to distract you away from the blood-stained road to Calvary. That sort of life is for martyrs and missionaries… not you, it’ll insist.

Oh, friend, join me in receiving every inward and outward trouble with both your hands, as a chance to die to yourself and enter into a happier fellowship with Jesus.

When God does not give you what you desire; when you pray until your knees ache, and yet the Lord says ‘No,’ it is a way of receiving trouble with open, willing hands.

It’s a glorious opportunity to let go of what you want, and cling to what Christ wants – perseverance, endurance, and a clearer understanding of His amazing love."

[from Joni's new daily devotional, A Spectacle of Grace, as quoted in aholyexperience.com]

 The above devotional thought meant a lot to me,

because this very morning I had been bringing something to the Lord,

a dear desire, that actually came from Scripture,

and I wanted it to happen--

and prayed for it to happen--

and claimed the promise to happen--

in my time frame.

And my heart broke as I handed it over to the Lord--

to do in His time frame,

not mine.

And so more of my apple is quartered, and shredded,

and pressed and compressed,

and the night falls and it is chilly.

Dear God,

don't let this little apple go to waste!

Don't let this crushing load go to the garbage! 

Let there be some sweet cider somewhere--sometime,

in Your time frame!

Our Broken Meat Grinder--and the Rigorous Exercise of Discernment

Recently Jonathan and I repaired a broken church window in Denver on our way to that cabin remodel estimate I wrote about a few posts back.

Here he is getting the new window carefully out of his truck. 

I helped Jonathan by holding a big piece of plastic underneath to catch the broken glass as he carefully poked at the outside layer of glass to dislodge it.

And then after he was done replacing it with a new pane, 

I helped pick up many little pieces of glass.

I asked Jonathan if he was used to doing this kind of repair, and he said he really hadn't done very many jobs like this.

Every place he works the job is just a little different--many tasks to figure out which he's really never done the exact same way before.

All through life, we are confronted with new tasks,

new twists, turns, angles, 

new sides to stories, 

new twists on an old problem,

and we have to exercise our God-given judgment to decide what we ought to do 

and how we ought to do it.

Unfortunately, too often, there are those who not only fail to discern properly,

that is, according to God's Word and godly principles--

but they don't exercise any discernment at all. 

They just do what feels good to them or what somebody convinces them is okay.

Often they listen to someone else's proposal that sounds good, feels good, looks good or tastes good,

and they fall for it. 

Especially if it is made to look spiritual enough,

or like what would be the "loving" thing to do.

It's so easy to just go with the flow,

float along the current,

do what "everybody" else is doing,

and vote yes just to keep the peace,

or to keep from being the speckled egg or the stick in the mud or the die-hard.

We fail to simply say, "Wait a minute.

What does God's Word say?

How about we take some time to pray about this and look at the long term effects 

before we just make a hasty decision or drop a careless vote?"

It takes experience to achieve maturity,

and it takes exercise and practice  to gain good discernment 

and to become strong not only in body but in spirit and mind.

The other day, our meat meat grinder that Jonathan had spent $80 for,

broke after grinding only about 20 pounds of  sausage.

The plastic gears overheated and broke irrepairably.

I could not find replacement parts online and we had to toss the whole grinder in the trash.

All because of cheap plastic parts that could not hold up to the heat.

Thankfully we were able to borrow another grinder from friends.

This one has all steel parts and it grinds and grinds and grinds

and grinds and grinds.

Steadily and surely, this strong, steel grinder churns out pound after pound of sausage, 

and tonight again, hopefully, it will be churning out pound after pound of homegrown ground beef.

I was reading in an article the other day about how the people of Hebrews, to whom Paul wrote,

needed "reminding that spiritual maturity is gained through the constant practice of discernment."

As a Mom, I need discernment every day as I raise my children.

Two days ago, my little daughter refused to come eat breakfast so she would not have to help with dishes.
It took me a few moments to exercise discernment.

Instead of cracking down on her, I chose to simply permitted her to do what she wanted to do--
but suffer the consequences. 

So she was allowed to play in her room, and she did not have to rinse dishes for Mommy, but she had no breakfast either.

At lunchtime, this is what Mommy set out for little daughter to eat.

To her horrified expression, Mommy replied that it would take dishes to cook the rice or the oats, and that this is about all that could be found to eat without being cooked!

(She hates tomatoes!)

For a few moments, little daughter took off quite indignantly, hiding behind a door and wiping tears from her eyes.
This was not easy for Mommy.
I do not enjoy the pain of watching my young children suffer through learning their lessons. 

I explained that as soon as she would come and do her job of clearing the dish drainer, 

she could have all the nice food that the rest of us were having for lunch.

It only took about three minutes, and little Miss Muffet was rather frantically putting away dishes and enjoyed a nice lunch with the rest of us--

with no one rubbing anything in.  

And she has been doing dishes ever since!

I could have taken the easy way out and decided it was too hard to make her do what was best for her,
and just do the dishes myself and let her have a snack later.
No.
That was not best for her, me, or anyone down the road. 
The author I referred to above wrote, "We too are in a spiritual war and under constant assault. God is calling us to spiritual maturity through our difficult, confusing, sometimes exasperating individual, family, and church situations (as well as our national ones). We are not to begrudge them. There is more mercy in them than we see, for they force us by constant practice to ransack the written word of God, get it in our hearts (Psalm 119:11), and grow in prayerfulness (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and in discernment.

There are far bigger things at stake in our becoming discerning people than the coming election. The United States, and every other nation, is just a drop in the bucket in the eyes of God (Isaiah 40:15). God’s primary concern is his holy nation, the church of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:9).

"The main thing happening around the world is not in news headlines, but what is happening in and through the church. What history is all about is the coming of Christ, his work of redemption, the spread of his gospel, and the ingathering of all his people from all the peoples into his church (Matthew 24:14; 28:19–20) — something the gates of hell will not withstand, much less human governments (Matthew 16:18). The more discerning we are, the greater benefit we bring to the church of God.

"That means there is great mercy for us and others, for our local churches and the global church, in God doing whatever it takes to make us more spiritually mature and discerning men and women. The fruit of our suffering and wrestling is never only for us, but also for the good of our brothers and sisters.

Whatever It Takes!

God has many purposes in the American presidential election. He is so powerful, so brilliant, and so complex in his providential weaving of history that it may be entirely possible for discerning Christians to vote differently in good conscience and yet all be serving the mysterious layers of God’s perfect will.

God knows how to tear down the proud (Proverbs 15:25), humiliate the devil and his angels (Colossians 2:15), and keep his saints walking by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). And he often orchestrates events in such a way that no one fully sees his stunning victory coming, until it bursts upon us like a thief in the night. God will reveal to us all someday how all the raging of the nations served to do what his hand and his plan had predestined to take place (Acts 4:25–28).

Let us not try and trace all the threads of his glorious providential tapestry.

 "Instead, let us pursue spiritual maturity by making this our prayer:

Whatever it takes, Lord, increase my ability to discern good from evil through the rigorous exercise of constant practice."

taken from http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/lord-help-me-know-right-from-wrong

One Gynormous Turnip--and How Do You Vote for a Turnip?

This picture hardly does justice to this gynormous turnip we have in our little garden.

Rose was eating another turnip the other day, fresh from our garden,

with salt on it.

Mmmm. she was saying, offering a piece to me.

Turnip is better with salt on it.

And when all you have to vote for in this next election is a Mr. Turnip,

remember that God wants us to be salt.
Sam was watching the presidential candidates debate Monday evening, and some of us joined him watching online part of the time. 

If we feel confused that we cannot vote our conscience, (i.e. vote for someone whom our conscience approves of in every way)

we ought to at least vote in a way that our conscience approves of our action--

action taken with the glory of God and the best interests of our nation and our families in mind.

This may require discernment and hard work,

principle rather than preference.

 That is somewhat the jist of a very good article I came across a few days ago at the following link:

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/you-cannot-vote-your-conscience

Here are some of the best parts of it that I'm copying and pasting, and
these thoughts are good for other matters as well, such as times when there are issues that you have little or no control over in your home, school, church, or community.
In the intricacies of life,
and insofar as our religious beliefs have a role,
we will have to exercise our senses in discernment,
something I hope to write about in my next post.

No Excuses for Bad Decisions

"The distinction between conscience-as-guide and conscience-as-reporter becomes massively significant when we apply it to elections and other important decisions.

For one, understanding your conscience as a guide — as a kind of third-party counsel, other than your own heart and mind — can aid the effort to excuse oneself from moral accountability. It is an easy thing to play the conscience card: “I’m going to vote for Candidate X because my conscience told me to.” Well, who can argue with that? If your conscience told you so, no need for further thought or careful arguments.

In reality, what most people mean by “conscience” is “my gut feeling,” which is to say, the bottom level of a sometimes-sinful, sometimes-good, often-confused, sincere mess of emotions, opinions, and understandings of what’s right and wrong — not exactly a faithful guide. Thus, the conscience often becomes a moral scapegoat either for sinful choices, or for the sin of apathy, or for neglecting the hard work required to make tough decisions.

By pointing to the “conscience,” many expect to be let off the hook for their sinful or unexamined actions. But this is foolish, since what they really mean by conscience is not the unquestionable law of God, but the highly questionable human heart (Jeremiah 17:9). Essentially, this abused understanding of the conscience trades a deceptive excuse like “the devil made me do it” with “my conscience made me do it.” 

For Love of God and Neighbor

A proper, biblical understanding of the conscience should lead Christians in the opposite direction. Instead of washing our hands of the hard work of making difficult decisions, we should be eager to give voting its due diligence and offer up our leanings against the law of God for evaluation. The Christian’s conscience is tethered to God’s law. That means that the conscience always speaks to the summary of God’s law: love God and love your neighbor (Matthew 22:37–40), which is a helpful grid to consciously consider for any election: Which vote (or no vote) will be the truest expression of my love for God and desire for my neighbor’s good?

 In any given situation, your conscience — properly speaking — will not lead you. It’s not your guide. But it will evaluate your thoughts or actions based on whether they conform or transgress God’s command to love him and love your neighbor with all you are — heart, mind, soul, and strength. Your own God-given wisdom — your “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14) — will lead you to understand (and be accountable for) the best way to obey the obligations of love for God and neighbor by voting for this candidate or that (or whether to abstain, not from apathy, but from principle).

 What your conscience will do is convict you if you are voting out of sinful comfort or greed or fear. Or it will minister God’s approval if you act, as well as you’re able, in an effort to obey the command to honor him and love your neighbor.

When this is done — when your vote is a positive expression of a heart that is earnestly “desiring to act honorably in all things” (Hebrews 13:18) — you will receive the testimony of a good conscience. Make that your goal this election season: not to hear crickets, but to receive the peace that comes from “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5).

So, don’t vote your conscience. Rather, in whatever electoral choice you make — hidden to the world, but in the full sight of God — seek to love him and love your neighbor with a good conscience."