You know what extreme sport I would never want to engage in? Spelunking. Throw me from an airplane. Tie a rubber band around my waist and push me off a bridge. Put me in a cage in shark-infested waters or leave me in the wilderness with a paper clip and a coffee filter and tell me good luck. But please don’t send me to explore … Continue reading Shall I Become the Anti-Evangelist?
We have heard with our ears, O God;
Our fathers have told us
what you did in their days,
in days long ago.
I heard a story the other day about a woman who needed potatoes. To make potato salad. And apparently she needed a lot of potatoes. I probably wasn’t listening very attentively, because I have no idea why she needed to make potato salad – church picnic, family reunion, Paula Deen was coming for a cook-out, I don’t know. But the woman needed potatoes and had no money for potatoes which was causing her a good deal of stress. People were depending on her potato salad. And then she got a phone call from a friend who worked at the weigh-station outside of town: “there’s truck here that’s 150 lbs overweight. It’s full of potatoes – do you know anyone who might need 150 lbs of potatoes?” Why, yes, yes she did. And potatoes fell down from the heavens like manna.
At the completion of this story, another man in the room exclaimed, “isn’t it amazing how God provides? Over and over I have seen things like that – even in my own family, God provides in the most unexpected ways.” Several others in the room nodded in agreement. Not me. I’m like the psalmist – I have heard of these things, but I haven’t seen them. Continue reading “Psalm 44: “You have made us a byword among the nations””
After a longer string of good days that I’ve had in I don’t know how long, I woke up pretty out of sorts this morning. Which is bound to happen. Especially, you know, every four weeks or so. So, rather than ruining my whole day by pushing myself until I’m too overwhelmed and drained to function, I grabbed my still groggy, crabby 2 year old and went back to bed to cry like a baby myself until it passed.
After a couple of minutes, Olivia looked up at the corner above the bed and began pointing towards the ceiling. She does this fairly often. I always say, “do you see an angel?” although I never see anything in the corner she’s pointing to. Continue reading “Angels in my Bedroom?”
I have been resisting the temptation to look for a couple of weeks now, but . . . SEED CATALOGUES ARE HERE! I love seed catalogues. I can sit and pour through them over and over again during the short days of winter. But this leads to dreams of turning my scraggly 2 acre yard of reclaimed brush land into a lush garden oasis. I develop delusions of having a thriving vegetable garden with well planned rows and patches. Maybe this will be the year that we try our hand at growing giant pumpkins. Visions of sunny sunflower patches. Rose bushes! A koi pond! Maybe even cluster of blueberry bushes and a few fruit trees at one corner of the yard. I can just see my children frolicking about the gardens, stopping to pluck a flower to adorn their curly hair while I sit with a glass of iced tea and soak in all the beauty of it. If only my yard didn’t actually look like it was waiting for a Chevy on cinder blocks to adorn it. One day.
For years I started seeds in a spare room under lights each spring. Each morning one of the first things I would do is go into the room to check and see what had sprouted or put up a new leaf overnight. Frankly I couldn’t even tell you why, but not much makes me happier – especially when it’s snowing in April – than seeing these little green shoots emerging from the soil. A few years back I had to leave town for a few days in late spring before I was able to plant out that year’s crop. The qxh, apparently not understanding that my request that he water them daily while I was gone wasn’t really optional, didn’t. When I got back about a third of my plants were dead. I’m normally a pretty tough cookie, but I cried for days. Continue reading “Seed Catalogue Dreaming”
For some time a couple of years ago I was blessed to have a spiritual director who I met with monthly. Towards the end of my time with her, I remember complaining, “I feel like God is getting down into the nooks and crevices and cleaning out every little speck of dirt he can find. I wish it would stop. Hasn’t he done enough? Does he really have to get into all the little, tiny places? I’m ready for him to be done”
It’s like it says in scriptures: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” (Hebrews 12:11) Too often, we think of discipline as punishment, but discipline is teaching. It is correcting, leading, challenging and pushing the recipient to mature and grow up. In proverbs, discipline is described as “training a child up”. Punishment isn’t the point. Correction is. And when we submit to the training God would like to take us through, it is easy and rewarding enough. But often God starts messing in places we’d just as soon leave alone. I mean, if I sometimes say mean things when provoked, that’s only normal and hardly needs God to attend to, right? But God says that his work is to perfect us. And according to him, such things really do require attending to if they are not to be a barrier between us.
The end of that verse from Hebrews holds the promise, though: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Today, I am glad that God was willing to reach into all those nooks and crevises to get out as much dirt as possible. There is no way I could survive the place I am walking through if he hadn’t. At the time, I just wanted it to stop, but God knew what was coming. Continue reading “When God Cleans”
I always wondered about faith. Evangelicals say that you have to choose to have it. Calvanists say that you are predestined to either have it or not. It’s a free gift that you cannot earn. But you have to nurture and hang onto it. Catholics and Orthodox Christians practice it with rituals. So many contradictory ideas.
What I have learned is that faith is the little voice that pops up when you are discouraged or even despairing and points you back to God. It tells you something true and sometimes what is true is not what you want to hear. And you can choose to embrace it and continue walking by faith or you can reject it and try to find your own way forward. And when times are hard, you have to really listen for it. You have to really hold onto what you hear. Because soon enough something will come and wash that little piece of comfort away.
When I have taught my kids to pray, I have always started with the story of Elijah at Horab from 1 Kings 19:
So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. Continue reading “The Mystery of Faith”
“Hanging on by a broken toenail” was the description I gave of my mental state earlier today to a friend who, thankfully, listened to my overwhelming mess of a life until I felt better (thank you, Mary!). If you haven’t been there before, just give it time. It’ll come to most all of us, unfortunately. Which is why years ago certain worship songs started to … Continue reading Hanging on by a broken toenail
The moments in my life that have been most sure and which have left me with the most peace and joy have been moments of defiance. The times when, even though no one else would get it, I knew the path I needed to take forward and I took it. These are my reckless moments. Those things that caused offense, consternation, even concern for my … Continue reading Defiance is a Christian Virtue
“You’re being too sensitive.” Oh are those ever familiar words. All through my childhood they trailed after me like a tin can tied to the end of my shoelaces with each step in danger of sending it bouncing across the floor. The sound of those words clanging along behind me made me wince until I could hardly bear to move from my spot any more. … Continue reading “You’re so sensitive!”
I, Rebecca Trotter, hereby declare that the time has come for a new form of Christian fundamentalism. It is my belief that this new fundamentalism is needed in order to preserve what is most sacred and true to Christianity against assaults from without and within the Christian church. Although there is freedom in Christ which allows for a variety of ideas and understandings to be … Continue reading A New Fundamentalism
The Upside Down World 