I’ve done it.

I hear (and read) others do it frequently. It goes something like this:

STEP ONE: Describe the terrible context of your recent reality. David does it in verses 1 and 2 of this Psalm.

STEP TWO: Describe the satisfactory resolution to the challenge or difficulty. David does this in verses 3 and 4.

And while David does not have the use of the now-well-worn phrase so many have come to use, I could almost hear him declare “God is good” and then the echo from the crowds around him “all the time.”

So, to repeat: “Bad stuff” + “Happy resolution to bad stuff” = “God is good” (with an implied, if not stated, “all the time”).

Nothing wrong with this!  We should tell the stories of what God does and declare his goodness regularly. No criticism here.

But, it we only tell of the things that go “our way” and declare God good in that context, we are missing out on the greater reality–that God is good when our experience is not so good.

“Bad stuff” + “Difficult/costly/painful resolution or no resolution at all” = “God is good.”

But David, he does it. The model exists for us in Psalm 3 (below) for example.

Look at verses 5 and 6:

It appears that David is still wallowing happy in the resolution to his challenging context — and he is — but it’s not what most of us would consider resolution. His declaration of “I slept great last night!” didn’t come because the bad guys who wanted to destroy him were vanquished and dispersed. He slept because God was present in the mist of the mess. “I am not afraid of the ten thousand enemies who surround me on every side” is absolutely a testimony to God’s goodness, it’s just not the kind we are as prone to declare. Surrounded by thousands of murderous enemies, God is good.

We are even less prone to declare things when we don’t sleep so well, but know God’s goodness in our insomnia.

I can point to people in my life who do declare God good ALL the time. Faced with a diagnosis of cancer: “blessed be the Name of the Lord.”  Overwhelmed by the wild destruction of a tsunami or tornado or other natural disaster: “God is good. His mercies never fail!” These are my heroes.

I want to be more like David in his declaration of God’s goodness while the ten thousand are still surrounding me. I want to learn to declare my gratitude for God’s presence in the midst of the mess and not only after the mess is cleaned up. Sometimes the mess just is. Sometimes the pain lingers long. None of those things negate God’s goodness. And, as much as I struggle with understanding it, I am growing to believe that God’s goodness sometimes requires the mess, the pain, and challenge.

My theology is sure on that, but my practice is a bit weak.

————————–

Psalm 3 (NLT)

This is, by the way, the Psalm David wrote when he was fleeing from his son, Absalom — which adds a layer of painfulness to this I would think. The enemies he describes are acting on behalf of his son.

1O Lord, I have so many enemies;
so many are against me.
2So many are saying,
“God will never rescue him!”

Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times shared this story of Jeffrey Wright who uses wacky experiments to teach children about the universe. But it is his own personal story that teaches them the true meaning of life. I’m grateful that my friend Mark shared this on Facebook or I would have miss it.

And, well, I’m sure that a more traditional Mother’s Day blog would focus on a mom rather than a dad, or at least on a woman teacher instead of a man. Call me untraditional. Or call me early—I blogged about my mom earlier this week.

Whatever you call me, I bet you’ll call this guy “great.” You’ll wish you could take high school physics again (or, like me, for the first time). You’ll hope that he’s a winner of some teacher-of-the-year type award.

Then you’ll keep watching and hear the rest of the story. You will begin to understand that he’s not just a great teacher. He is a  life-long learner. He is a real man who has, like Jacob, wrestled with God and who, by God, has been given great grace.

————-

A version of this story appeared in print on 12/25/2012, on page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: Laws of Physics Can’t Trump the Bonds of Love. You can also find a version on NYTimes.com blog here.

Sin is like that. There is sin that lures us with beauty and mystery. Sin that feels as unthreatening as gentle waves lapping about our toes on a sunny seaside walk. Sin that builds our confidence to take one step further. Sin that promises something it can never deliver, but it promises with such conviction that we begin to believe.

I’m pretty sure that this little lamb had no intent of getting herself in a place where she needed saving. But something called her little sheep heart and mind to wander. She and I are a lot alike in that tendency.

Unlike Jesus, these young men did not go in search of a lost sheep. They simply found her. Unlike Jesus these young men did not give up their lives to save the sheep, though they did take a risk. In some ways I’m just as moved by this to be a rescuer as I am to be grateful that I’ve been rescued — and a good story will do that.

 ——————–

When I ran across a few of these images I was curious about the story so I started to search. The few times there was story shared with the images, the story was consistent. One Australian blogger shared it as “Erik and Torvald  were out and about with a mate taking photos with a new camera when Erik saw the lamb struggling in the waves.”  Another source identified these guys as Erik Bjørnøy and Torvald Ask from Norway and then shared what I can only guess was a Google Translate rendering of the story from some Norwegian source which I could never find.I cannot tell you with any journalistic confidence that this information is accurate–only that all the bits of info I found were consistent.

The point of sharing this is not so much to share news of an event that appears to have occurred in June of 2012, but to use these images as a reminder of a few things. At least they were a reminder to me when I first laid eyes on them earlier today. 

I’m not sure what it is about cats that captures my attention (and that of so many others), but those crazy felines have a strange power over (some of) us. Cat videos are the most popular thing on the world wide web. And yes, that is a rather sad fact. But that does not take away from the reality that some cat videos are rather quite amusing.

You may  need to be a cat person of some sort to get any real chuckle out of this. I cannot tell. If you are not a cat person and this makes you laugh at all, will you confirm my guess that it will? Thanks.

(For my friends who are parents of young children who lurk over your shoulder when you watch things on YouTube, you should know that there are a number of references to cat scat and they use a variety of verbiage in reference to said scat which you  may or may not use in your homes.)

Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate people’s desire to be sensitive. I just want to say clearly that I’m really good with Mother’s Day.

Some think that Mother’s Day might be a challenge for me because I have never been a mother myself and they’re sure I’m aching about that. Truth is I did my mourning of the loss of that dream many many years ago and am now fully at peace with what has been God’s perfect plan for me.  By His generous grace, he put exactly the right people and their beautiful babies into my life at just the right time when I needed to feel the grieving without getting lost in the hopeless of it. Ahhh, He is good.

And yes, I know that my mother died and that missing her could make this day hard for me—losing a mom to physical death could reasonably do that.

The thing is, I don’t miss my mom any more on Mother’s Day than any other Sunday. I just miss her. And,well, Mother’s Day does not uniquely remind me of her.

There are things that do remind me of her, but I’d not want anyone to stop these things. The memories are good and, even when they bring a bit of the pain that comes from missing, they bring even more of the joy that comes from loving.

Spitting watermelon seeds reminds me of my mom.

Getting a speeding ticket on I-80 somewhere in Nebraska reminds me of my mom. Or it would.

“Spit and slide under” reminds me of my mom.

Dansk dishes remind me of my mom. And Lladro figurines. And P.Buckley Moss prints.

The gold-colored Dial soap reminds me of my mom.

Now that I’m the age my mom was when I was in college, the way my hands look remind me of my mom.

Ice cream reminds me of my mom. All of it. Every time.

I love Mother’s Day. I love that we still take time to celebrate the extraordinary role Mothers play in the lives of children. My dear friends who are moms—through birth, through marriage, through adoption, through whatever means—I pray that you will grow more and more in your understanding of God’s love for you as you grow in your love for the children He’s entrusted to your care.

And for those whose wounds are not yet healed and for whom this day is a challenge, oh that God’s peace will fill you up beyond reason!  If I suffer at all on this day of celebration it is for you whose wombs still ache or whose hearts are broken by children who are lost in rebellion or who cannot yet find the joy that is beyond the pain of other loss. God does not leave you alone in your grief. He named His own Son Immanuel as a reminder of His eternal presence. I pray that you will know Him more and more as the One who is with you to bring hope and healing.

typography…

I’m rather glad about the fact that I studied graphic design just as the computer was revolutionizing the whole deal—early enough to have strangely fond memories of hand-drawing various fonts, of purchasing sheets of rub-off lettering on a student budget, and of setting headlines in the darkroom and waxing them to the page as we did newspaper layout.

And then I got my first Mac and a laser printer. This purchase preceded the purchase of an automobile in my now-that-I’m-employed world. And with it came a bundle of fonts and endless possibilities.

I found this graphic in an article about “essential apps” for type lovers. I’ve not checked out the apps…yet. This image links to that article in case you’re interested.

My favorite projects—whether assignments for class or freelance jobs or just things I did because it’s what I do—have revolved around typography or color theory. Combine the two and I’m in my design happy place.

Maybe I’ll doodle about during some presentation (I honestly listen better when I am doodling) in the near future and show you some of my favorite typeface options. In the meantime, I feel that I must confess that as I watched this short video, I found myself feeling nostalgic all of this. Funny, how things work like that.

Are there things like that for you? Like what?

A few weeks ago I had a hallway conversation with a guy who owns sporting goods stores and who loves Wycliffe. We rabbit-trailed all over the place and I eventually had the chance to tell him about Wycliffe’s RACE to 2025. In enthusiastic response he told me about a trend in adventure racing that is out there buzzing all over the place. I was thrilled to hear how Wycliffe’s cool opportunity is also clearly on target for the primary audience. Wooo hoooo! Go team.

Wycliffe USA and Wycliffe Canada have partnered to offer a number of adventure race opportunities this year. The simple version is that teams of four compete over the course of a weekend in a variety of physical and mental challenges. With their registration, they agree to try to raise money for a specific project—that is a collaborative venture for all the teams in the competition. Over the course of the weekend, they compete for prizes and learn about Bible translation and build an Instagram feed full of memories to hold and stories to share.

And that bit about Ruth sponsoring you?  If you pull together a team and it was this blog post that motivated you to it, I’m in.

This is a promo video Wycliffe Canada did last year with the funds raised going to a cluster of nine languages in Cameroon.

Then I started to see things.

Before I knew it I had the 8 ft. ladder from the garage along with a small assortment of tools and I was doing stuff. That stuff led to other stuff.  And then even more stuff. My best estimate puts me up and down the ladder two dozen times. I’ll feel that tomorrow.

What a gorgeous day to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine!

Now, where are those Advil?

May 2: 3 GIFTS FLAT

• the flat bread that combined with provolone and spinach leaves for a pretty delicious and rather flat sandwich
• Divertimenti No. 15 in F flat major by Mozart
• blank paper and an invitation to fill it

May 3: 3 GIFTS FOUND IN DIFFICULT PEOPLE

It doesn’t seem appropriate to list difficult people here, or to give enough detail aboun unnamed difficult people that you might be able to figure it out. So…this may not make any sense to anyone but me. I’m okay with that.

• creating necessity for finding alternative ways to doing something that needs to be done
• offering opportunity to see things from a perspective that I’d otherwise never consider
• the delight of being surprised when you get beyond the cranky facade and find a person

May 4: 3 GIFTS BEFORE 9 AM

• waking up without the nudge of an alarm
• Ann Curry’s honorable telling of the story of oil and Ecuador
  I didn’t stay up last night to watch Rock Center with Brian Williams, trusting that NBC would share the video segment I wanted to see online. I was correct in my assumption and watched it this morning. There is so much more to this story and, like any story that arises out of controversy, you’ll find many who passionately tell skewed versions of it. 
  
• bright green spinach, bright orange carrots, onion and garlic, and eggs — scrambled and cooked to perfection
  Saturday morning is a perfect time to make the breakfast that takes a bit more time to assemble. I’m on a crazy veggie egg scramble kick lately. Yum!

Gratitude is equally (for me, at least) about obedience and worldview.  The feeling part of it is negotiable, but usually comes after a pattern is established into a habit.

I signed up to have Voskamp’s blogs emailed to my inbox. I don’t subscribe to most of the blogs I “follow” but, this one—I need the extra nudge. Today’s blog included the MAY list for GIFT Counting. I have the app, am not enough in the habit to rely on that for a photo journal yet. That might surprise you.

Instead, I will write the list in the blog. Today I will do day one. I may or may not post the blogs every day. We’ll see.

I am, after all, “for” gratitude.

DAY 1: 3 GIFTS TASTED

• T.C.’s homemade York Peppermint Patty Ice Cream (also grateful for the invitation via text so I wouldn’t miss this one)
• Fresh carrots, yellow squash, zucchini and onions steamed to perfection
• Cajun bacon wrapped scallops (which I had on Sunday evening, but am still thinking about)