"No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it."

Quote by Harry Emerson Fosdick

I've been thinking for a while now that it's time to update this blog of mine. Several weeks ago, I tried to write a post about how we categorize people based on age, occupation, socioeconomic standing, etc, and how that categorization then develops our identity, whether we realize it or not. But the words just didn't come easily and I figured out that you can't rush inspiration. So that post is on the back burner, and I'm attempting to write something else.

Sunday is a day of rest. We Mennonites are supposed to go to church, sit for 3 or 4 hours listening to wise people expound on the Scriptures, then go home and eat a big dinner with our families. All this eating of big dinners makes us sleepy, and so we nap for several hours. Sunday evenings could potentially be a time of families bonding over board games and popcorn.

Did God mean for us to all conform to the same standard of rest? Does He expect us to literally not lift a finger in work? If we say that we cannot ride our bicycles on Sunday, because it is work, are we better than the Pharisees who made fastidious rules about how far a person could walk on the Sabbath? Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that we should do what we feel is restful to us (My, that sounds New Age-y...). We know ourselves. What relaxes us? What gets us in touch with God? I think I understand about God's day being holy, and I don't think we should abandon church services. Please don't hear me saying that. But maybe it's not all about the schedule. Maybe a bike ride is exactly what you need to forget the cares of the week, clear your mind, and focus on God. Or maybe it's a walk through the Meadville cemetery, like my good friend, Becca.

I just know that sometimes sitting in a warm church building, on hard benches, surrounded by people I only see once a week, is NOT my idea of restful, nor does it help me hear God (and other times it is and does). Maybe it's my fault. Perhaps I don't prepare my heart well enough, or I have deluded myself with imagined judgments from the people around me.

Let me present to you what I'm doing today, and I'll let you judge whether or not I "kept the Sabbath holy."

I slept in a little this morning. Not much, but a few hours more than I would have if I was heading off to school. I've been sitting in my room, praying and pondering life. Around 11, I'm going to pick up my darling nephew and bring him back here. We're going to clean up the house, then get out his construction zone rug and crash cement mixers with our dump trucks for a while. Then we're going to bake a chocolate cake with Auntie Hannah.

Before evening darkens the sky in preparation for the night, my family will sit down with our special meal of steak, corn-on-the-cob, and chocolate cake, in celebration of life in general, I guess. We will laugh and talk and enjoy the camaraderie that the name "Rolan" brings to our small group.

And tonight, I will fall into bed, happy with the day; happy with life. I will try not to remember that school begins tomorrow morning with a relentless and ferocious intensity that I hadn't expected. But I will be hopeful that the week will bring peace and wisdom in double measures. Because this is my life. And I'm happy with where it's taken me. And I know that God has promised to be with me, wherever He leads me.

I hope all of you had an extremely restful day of rest.

Of Trifles, Bells, and Being Asked Out

I must admit that the last few weeks of work (at Wal*Mart, in the bakery, in case some of you don't know) have not been easy. I've been scheduled primarily for closing, which includes all of the pan-up (pulling all the boxes out of the freezer and getting everything ready for the next day's baking) and all of the cleaning. There is little to no interaction with other people, since the other bakery people escape by mid-afternoon.

I thrive on human interaction. It was not always this way, but it is now. So, I've been feeling more and more burned out as I work each evening in solitude. As I was putting the Italian bread dough on the pans tonight, I prayed these words to Whomever cared to be listening to my griping: "God, I can't take this for very much longer! Please do something."

And He did, although I didn't put the pieces together until a little later. Sit back and let me tell you about the three separate incidents that put a smile on my face.

1. A man called the bakery phone tonight, and I picked up, thinking that he wanted to place a cake order. Well, he thought he'd reached the bank, and so while we were chuckling about the mistake and I was rummaging about for the correct number to give him, he decided to make a move. "So, what do you do in the bakery?" I told him I bake bread and I answer phones. He laughed. Then he lowered his voice to what he apparently believes to be a seductive tone and said "What are you doing when you get off work tonight?" Now, I could have taken this the wrong way and gotten offended, but quite honestly, it cracked me up. I told him that I was going to go home and eat supper with my family. "Oh, you have a family?" There is acute disappointment ringing in his voice, and I realize he's assumed I meant my husband and children, but I just cheerfully respond that I do, in fact, have a family. "Well," he says, undeterred, "You should invite me over for dinner sometime. I'll even make the meal. I will wine and dine you!" I just laughed and said that sounded like fun, gave him the number he needed for the bank, wished him a fine evening, and hung up before I lost it completely. I was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down my face, but it sure improved my evening! (Come to think of it, does it count as being asked out if the guy invites himself over? Oh well, I don't feel like changing the title of the post.)

2. I am doing something in the backroom, trying to get everything done before it's time to go, and I hear the bell ring on the counter out front. I walk to the doorway to see what the customer needs and no one is there. I'm a bit confused, but I can't rule out that I'd simply imagined the bell, so I go back to my work. Soon, I hear it again. I poke my head out the door, and this time I see a young boy, probably about 10 or 11, standing across the room looking at me. He waves and then darts off to follow his mother. I just shake my head and laugh, and get back to work. Before too long, there's another *ding* and I go to investigate. There he is again, but he motions me over and starts nervously mumbling and gesturing towards our display of pies and cookies. As I'm trying to make sense of his words, I watch his face, and I notice that he is absolutely beautiful. I think he's Indian. He has flawless dark skin, shiny black curls, and gorgeous brown eyes. I realize that he's asking if we have cookies to give as free samples (as we often do) and I say, teasingly "Oh! You want cookies!" He breaks into this huge, relieved grin and nods vigorously. Well, he got his cookies while his mother gives me an embarrassed, apologetic look over his head. She had nothing to be embarrassed or apologetic about. :) Kids will be kids.

3. A woman came along and asked if we had any angel food cake in the back, since there was none left on the shelf. Digging through the freezer for an elusive box of cake was just about the last thing for which I had time, but I looked anyway. And sure enough, I found a box or two in the farthest stack of boxes. I brought some out to her. "Bless your heart! You're a life-saver! I'm making trifles and I really needed these."
I could tell she was in the mood to chat, and I needed a break anyway, so I said "Oh? I'm making trifles later this month too!" (For those of you who don't know, trifles are a yummy dessert with layered cake pieces, pudding, whipped cream, and usually a fruit). We ended up chattering away for about 5 minutes about the different recipes we were planning on making, and the benefits of using brownies instead of cake pieces, or raspberries in place of cherries. It was wonderful.

I will never cease to be amazed at what God does for us. It was such a little detail to attend to; unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, but He still reached down and placed those people in my evening to cheer me up.
How often to do I overlook these moments, or just attribute them to normal life?

How often do I miss the chance to laugh?

Light Trumps Darkness

"There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light." -Jodi Picoult

My world has recently been expanded to include the famous story of Nate Saint, and his four companions who were slaughtered by the Waodani (also called Huaorani or Auca) people of Ecuador. And I was shocked by how dedicated they were…to go to the people who knew only killing and being killed; to be that totally given to a mission that they’d go through with it, no matter the personal cost; to not fight back or fire their guns when they saw the warriors charging with their spears.

They let go of their personal comforts that they could have had at home and moved to the untamed, foreign land of Ecuador.

They let go of their reservations in reaching an untamed, barbaric tribe and initiated contact.

They let go of their own natural instincts of safety and self-preservation and put themselves in a very dangerous place.

Somehow, without knowing the natives personally, they loved them enough to let go and reach out.

And as if that isn’t amazing enough, I was struck with another thought. My mind flashed to the wives of these five men. They loved their husbands to the point that they would share their mission. They would leave their extended families at home and struggle to take care of their immediate families in this unforgiving alien country. They hugged and kissed their men goodbye on that fateful morning, praying that this meeting with the natives would go as well as the previous, but still knowing that anything was possible. And, when days went by and their men didn’t return, they could only assume the worst. Somehow, by some divine assistance, those new widows found forgiveness in their hearts for their husbands’ killers, enough to go visit and even live among them.

They loved their husbands enough to let them leave on the ill-fated trip, loved the natives enough to forgive, and loved their God enough to get through the whole mess.

As it is so clearly evidenced, love is not safe. In a world obsessed with personal safety, this story could be more proof not to put yourself out there; an “I told you so” to every person warned of the danger of love. I see danger in elaborate home protection systems, and numerous insurance plans. I’m not talking about being dumb with our material things; keep honest people honest. But the extent to which we go, making sure that we can’t be touched, should be called into question. The same goes for heart matters – get to know the cashiers at your local grocery store, get involved in the community, give time and energy even when you don’t feel like it. Be yourself, even when you face the fear of rejection. Love wholeheartedly and unconditionally, even when you know it might never be returned. Our hearts, time, and money are not our own.

We know that Operation Auca and the missionaries’ sacrifices were not in vain. The killing of the men, followed by the forgiveness of the woman, allowed the Waodani people to accept God (or Waengongi) into their lives, and the revenge killings between tribes reduced by 90%. In the well-known words of Jim Elliot (one of the five men killed), “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

What differences can I make if I open my heart to the people around me and leave my safety in the hands of God?

~~~I have only watched the movie “The End of the Spear”. If any of my readers own books pertaining to the Palm Beach massacre, or the missionaries’ lives before or after, I would love to borrow them.~~~

"As long as we both shall live..."

Today was my first day with a new job. I am helping out a couple that lives in the community. He is 97 years old, and she just turned 91 years old last week. They are both darling. I can't wait to learn all that I can from them. Can you imagine having nearly a century of knowledge and experience to impart? And yet that's when people stop listening and write you off as "outdated" or "out of touch."

This woman reminds me of my grandmother. She worries when she perceives the room in which I am reading as too dark. She speaks proudly of her sons and their families and "my niece that wrote two books!" She offers me a glass of pop several times in an hour, and feels bad that she didn't have the energy to do the sink full of dishes herself. She wants to know all about my life, and has an amazing memory for names and events that are important to me. She brings to life the stories of the times that her husband walked to work because they only had one car and when "we were poor, so we didn't have much meat."

The most memorable part of the afternoon though, was when she got a soft look in her eyes and said this: "I never imagined that he would have a stroke and we would need to get help like this. I never expected it. But, I married him 'for better or for worse.' I guess now it's time for the 'for worse' part."

She's my newest hero.

Living Fully

How do we live fully? It seems in the humdrum of life, our "full living" gets pushed aside to a more convenient date or time. But that date or time doesn't always come, and so our living becomes cramped and dusty.
We are aware of the story of Esther in the Bible. She was put in the position of queen just when her people needed her most. She told Mordecai, her cousin, that she would go to the king and plead on the behalf of the Jews, even though she hadn't been summoned and it could mean death for her. She said "I'll go to the king, and if I die, I die."
We know how this story ends. Esther went to the king and the king received her. Esther then brought her plea to the king and her people were saved and the wicked Haman was hanged.
Esther was an amazing woman. She gathered her courage, risked her life, and saved her people. She will be remembered forever for being so brave and willing to put herself in danger. We could say she was living life to the fullest. She gave everything she had to give. She was there “for such a time as this.”
Sometimes we have the opportunity to do great things as well. It’s easy to live life to the fullest when we are saving the whales, running a soup kitchen, organizing a fundraiser to make money for Bibles in China, or you’re in Romania building an orphanage. We give everything we have – we can see the results of our work immediately; we are changing people’s lives. People around us see what we’re doing and they appreciate it. They may even be a bit awed by what we’re doing.
So, what do we do with the fact that a lot of life is just living day-to-day, trying not to fall behind on homework, or fall asleep in class? Maybe we have a job. But it’s the same job day in and day out. We have almost the same routine over and over. We’re not saving humanity or going on mission trips. How can we live life to the fullest in those mundane, totally ordinary moments when we’re not doing anything spectacular?
Let’s look at what Esther was up to before she was Queen saving her people. She started out in a small house in a village. She was an orphan, living with her cousin, possibly eking out their existence from day to day. She probably ground corn, baked bread, washed clothes, swept the floor, and made the beds. She lived an ordinary life. Day in and day out; nothing spectacular. A knock on her door changed her life forever. She was taken the palace where she spent an entire year getting beauty treatments. My question is, just how many times can you wash and brush your hair, soak in myrrh-infused water, and get sprayed with perfume before you’re really tired of it? Probably not very long. Even this exciting thing became ordinary. Mundane. Rather unspectacular.
But faithfully she performed her duties. It was boring scrubbing floors, and being spritzed with perfume was certainly getting old as well. But she kept up with it. We don’t know if she did it without complaining, but by entering into those moments and accomplishing those tasks, she was living life to the fullest. In each thing she did, whether it was baking or bathing, God was preparing her for her future, for that great event for which everyone will remember her.
I have to wonder if Esther ever felt like her life was going nowhere. Was she tired of doing the same things over and over just like we get tired of going to classes every other day and doing homework in every spare moment? We have to remember that God is orchestrating every moment. He has us where we are for a reason. He may be preparing us for something spectacular. On the other hand, we may never see the real, full results of our hard work. Nevertheless, we are doing homework and attending classes because we are here “for such a time as this.”
Life isn’t always filled with the glorious things that let us know that we are making a difference. Sometimes we are just living from day to day, doing the same thing
But, we are here for such a time as this. This IS where we are supposed to be right now
Leo Tolstoy, in his story, Three Questions, says, “Remember then: there is only one time that is important - Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!"
Enter each moment, accomplish the task set before you; then you will be living life to the fullest.