In Gennesaret

“Joy to the world!” we sang a couple nights ago. I love the Christmas Eve service at my church. Very traditional, very sweet. "The Lord has come." Yes, he is here! “Let earth receive her king!” Yes, earth – do so! “Let every heart prepare him room . . .” And that stopped me short. Because I haven’t thought about that line much, I don’t think. Prepare him room . . . every heart must do that, including mine . . .   how exactly do I prepare room in my heart for Jesus? I have a guest room in my little house, and when I have someone coming to visit, I prepare that room for them. I dust and sweep and check for cobwebs (and random dead wasps and scorpions – I do live in Texas, y’all). I change bed linens, making the bed comfortable for sleeping in the current season. I make sure the clock is set correctly and the closet has room for their items. I also have a little bookshelf in there where I put books my guest might be interested in. (I got that from my mother-in-law, who alw

I was the substitute teacher in my Sunday School class yesterday, the Joy Sunday of Advent. So we talked about joy. Which is literally (and perhaps ironically) my middle name. Ironically because I’ve struggled a lot with depression and discontentment over the years. I would read scripture like Galatians 5 and think, what is this “joy” you speak of? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I certainly had happy times. Lots of them, for sure. But there’s a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is more dependent on external factors and is therefore more fleeting and temporary. Joy is an internal state, the condition of one’s life. And Jesus told us he intended for us to have his joy, to have complete joy. And . . . nope. Couldn’t say I could relate to that one. So, yeah. Joy. What made me think it was a good idea for me to teach about this in Sunday School? Mainly because I was recently reminded of an analogy I heard years ago: the image of a pilot taxiing an airplane down the h

“Some people love dogs; I love trees,” my friend shared with our group a while ago. She said she names the trees in her neighborhood, and I thought that was sweet. So, while I was out on my walk the next day, I started looking at the trees and considering what names they should have. This one reminds me of that stern, elderly man in my church growing up – Dale. This one is squatty and fat, but with a vibrant green spread on top – LaOuida. This young thing is still holding its arms close, afraid to branch out – Timmy. But we have this cool kind of tree down here in South Texas: the Live Oak. For the record “live oak” doesn’t mean the opposite of a dead oak. It’s a particular type of oak, and they are some of the coolest trees ever. They grow all haywire in fascinating swirls around the yard. And not just the branches at the top – the trunks themselves are all catawampus. Some (like the one in this picture) almost look like two freakish trees melded together. It's not unusual to se

Last week while my daughters were home for Thanksgiving, I had one magnificent night of the best sleep I’ve had in MONTHS. And people . . . it was downright glorious. For one night. I’ve mentioned my sleep issues before. They are significant and long-standing. I don’t want to take the time and space to describe the history in detail here. I do have pills – prescription and otherwise – that I make use of at times (although I’m reluctant to overuse them after having been quite addicted to Ambien at one point). More importantly, I have solid routines and strategies in place to try to combat the problem. For example, I have all sorts of things memorized that I use to try to divert my brain from thoughts that keep me awake. Lots of scripture, but also just a whole bunch of lists. The states and their capitals. Countries in the world – by continent and in alphabetical order. Books of the Bible – in canonical and alphabetical order. The presidents – in chronological and alphabetical ord

I have to give credit to Chris in my Sunday School class; he’s the one that brought it to our attention. We were talking about the passage in Mark when Peter acknowledges that Jesus was the Messiah, and Jesus sternly warns the disciples not to tell anyone. The class was wondering why he gave them that warning, and we came up with some possibilities. The one that rings most true to me is that the Jews of that time were looking for a political Messiah. If word got around that Jesus was that, the excitable radicals might have started balls rolling that would have gotten authorities involved (including the Romans), and the real plan could have been thwarted. But Chris pointed something else out that really stuck with me. This is a great example of Jesus living out a principle we all need to understand: just because it’s true doesn’t mean it’s helpful to say right now. Oh, my goodness . . . on the nose, my friend! How many times have I heard people justify unkind, judgmental words to s

I have a Don’t Let Yourself Lie speech I give to my students. The 8 th graders have heard it two or three times now over their middle school years with me and will probably hear it again before the year ends. It usually comes up when I have an assignment that they could cheat on easily – like getting their parent’s signature on something. I point out to them the cheating opportunity so they know I know it’s there. And I point out to them that they could cheat and I would probably never know. But they would know – and God would know – and they would be lying. And lying is a terribly destructive habit to allow yourself to fall into. Yes, this would be a somewhat inconsequential untruth, and you’d probably get away with it. But that would just make it easier to lie about bigger things later . . . and then about even bigger things . . . and I know people who have almost destroyed their lives through deception. But it starts with little perjuries. “Yes, ma’am, that’s my mother’s signatur

One of my sweet middle school students turned in an assignment a few weeks ago that was totally whack. She’s a doll. I love her. But I have no idea what she thought she was doing here. I pulled her aside to ask her about it. “Look at the directions. Can you read that to me?” And she did. “Do you know what that means?” I asked. “Yes, ma’am,” she smiled. “So, do you know what you did wrong?”   “Yes, ma’am,” she smiled, taking the paper; “I’ll fix it.” But I wasn’t so sure. “Tell me what you're going to fix,” I asked. She told me . . . and was completely wrong. So, I explained the instructions again. Oh . . . she quickly smiled with apparent understanding. “You get it now?” “Yes, ma’am. Thank you!” she smiled. My instincts made me ask one more time. “So, what are you going to change?” And she explained . . . and was again completely wrong. Bless her heart . She’s such a darling. She wants to please. But she doesn’t listen. I think she thought she was listening. She

Thank you, Lord . I sat outside after dinner, reading some books, pausing between chapters to look up at the tree branches against the blue sky. And I kept saying over and over in my head, Thank you, Lord. You’d have to know me pretty well to understand why this was remarkable. When I look around my backyard, I see a lawn full of weeds and dry patches. The paint on the back door is flaking off. The fence along the back edge of the lot is buckling in and out in various spots. The table I’m sitting at is dirty – I don’t even remember the last time I cleaned it. I’ve got a little bench out here that is leaning sadly to the left and the wood is all faded and scuffed. Compared to the houses I used to live in (again, credit to the ex for housing us well), this is kind of a dump. There was a time when I would have sat out here and only seen the dumpiness. The flaws and imperfections. There was also a time when sitting alone in relative silence would have prompted me to ponder all the

It was Miguel’s birthday. And I love Miguel. But I don’t always love socializing. I’m an introvert. As much as I treasure my people and preach the importance of connecting with others, the stereotypical party event – like for a birthday – is really a strain on my heart and mind. A whole bunch of people just sitting around for the purposes of small talk . . . especially when I don’t know some of those people well . . . all the background noise which my old ears struggle to filter out . . . it’s just hard for me. So, I avoid it. But it was Miguel’s birthday. Miguel is our Zumba instructor. He is positive and fun and energetic and makes us feel good about ourselves when we are looking fat and sweaty and gross. He’s in his final semester of nursing school, and he is going to be a rockin’ nurse. I love Miguel. But I really didn’t want to go to his birthday party. That sounds awful. But y’all, I did have reasons. We were going to a Mexican restaurant after our Zumba class on Monday. Let’

Friends, I am quite distressed by the current political situation. There are politicians out there who show all the signs of genuine mental health disorders. There are politicians out there saying and doing things that I find just inconceivable. There are politicians out there whom I think I might like and respect if I knew them personally . . . but they are standing with the crazies. And I can’t fathom it. I just can’t. And you know what’s nuts? I suspect there are those of you reading this on both sides of the aisle who are nodding in agreement with me. Everybody is crazy. And everybody thinks everybody else is the crazy one. What is WRONG with us, people?? How did we get here? I’ve spent far too much time fretting about this lately . . . but I think I do have a pertinent insight. When I first started directing plays with young people back in Sioux City, I quickly realized that I could not make it my primary goal to put on a great play. Because if that was the objective, t

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Ps 37:4) In my old Bible, the one with the spine taped up and dated notes written in it from past years, I have a note beside Psalm 37:4. I didn’t date this one, but it must have been written before 2001, when my father died after a 21-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. There was a time when I thought the desire of my heart was for dad to die and be released from that prison – because Alzheimer’s , people. It’s horrible. But when I wrote this note by this verse, God had just revealed something to me. “My true desire,” I wrote, “is that the family will be relieved of the burdens – and God can do that with dad alive, and probably more to His glory.” I don’t know about any of the rest of the family’s experiences, but I know there was healing that happened in my heart during those last years of his illness that might not have happened had he been killed in a car crash or something. And whether I was awa

A couple years ago, one of my daughters was getting rid of a dress that I liked, so I tried it on. It was awfully cute, but it was not a style I usually wore. I showed it to my girls. “What do you think? Can I get away with wearing this? Does it look okay on me? Do I look good in it?” Their eyes widened a bit. “Oh, yeah – you look great, mom. But . . . that’s not a work dress for you. Or a church dress. “That’s a DATE dress.” OHHH. Well, dang. Thanks. I’ll just wait for one of those. I am so not a clothes person. I have no sense at all of what’s fashionable or stylish – I’m not always sure what looks good on me – and Lord knows I HATE shopping. I’m really desperately in need of a few clothing items right now (a pair of jeans, some exercise shorts, probably another pair of good walking shoes), but I cannot make myself find time to accomplish such a dreaded task. Courtney, who apparently LOVES to shop, has offered to go with me, bless her. I’m not sure she knows what she would be

Back in New Jersey fifteen years ago, I did a monologue in a church service as a homeless person. In preparation, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out my look, and I tried it out on the women attending my scrapbook workshop that weekend. These pants? This shirt or that one? No makeup – how about my hair back? I affected a bit of a limp, if I remember right (because a friend standing at the door through which I left the sanctuary complimented me on maintaining it all the way out). I spent a lot of time running lines in front of a mirror, just to see how I looked. I wanted to not look like me. And I apparently succeeded – I had a couple friends tell me after the service that they didn’t recognize me at all for quite a while. But at one point while I was rehearsing with the mirror, I took a really good look at myself. And it occurred to me that several years earlier, it would have killed me to go on stage looking this ugly. I didn’t realize until that moment how much my perfo

Let me tell you about a couple freaky incidents that happened to me about twenty years ago. Back in New Jersey, when the girls were little and I was in a Mothers of Preschoolers group.  At a MOPS meeting one week, the guest speaker offered to visit with each of us individually if we’d like – to give us “a personal Word from the Lord”, or something to that effect. I was rather skeptical of the offer . . . but I was also at a place where I was trying to be open to new things, and I was certainly curious. I watched the other women who spoke to him, and they seem to have brief, positive conversations. So, why not? I decided to give it a shot. The man was kind and friendly, but he seemed to have a bit of trouble with me. He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. Then he gently told me that God wanted me to stop hiding from him. I’m sure I gave him a questioning look, and he seemed to be praying or listening again. But he came back with the same “message”. Stop hiding from God. Well, h

So, I’ve been reading lately on the difference between expectations and expectancy.   Expectations are when you assume something is going to happen – when you expect someone (God, someone else, yourself) to do a particular thing. I expected my teenage children to put their dirty clothes in the laundry room on laundry day. I expected my husband to not sleep with other women. I expect the teachers on my team to post their lesson plans by Saturday evening. Some expectations, like these, are quite reasonable. Other expectations are not. It would not be reasonable for parents in my school to expect teachers to respond to their emails after 10pm. It would not have been reasonable to expect my daughters to only date boys I picked out for them. It was not reasonable to expect myself to be the same kind of housekeeper my mother was while I was homeschooling and living in a much larger house. But now, expectancy is a different thing. Expectancy is an attitude you live in. It’s having your

Jesus’ first miracle recorded in the New Testament was when he turned water into wine. I never really got a satisfactory explanation about that from the teetotaler Baptist adults in the church I grew up in. The best one I heard was that water was not clean at the time, so drinking wine was safer – and their wine wasn’t as strong as wine today and less likely to cause drunkenness. Hmm. Maybe. Nevertheless, I think it is noteworthy that the Lord’s first supernatural act performed in his human body was so different from those that came later. When we think about Jesus’ miracles, we generally think of the scads of people he healed – physically and spiritually. We see him casting out demons, feeding multitudes, meeting basic needs for survival. But his first miracle was about increasing joy. It was a wedding, a party. They were celebrating the nuptials of a young couple beginning a life together. And huge part of such a celebration in biblical times was wine. And oh, people . . . it

A couple weeks ago, our Sunday School lesson was over 1 King 19 – the story of Elijah running away to Horeb after his big victory over the prophets of Baal (in chapter 18). I love this story. God used it mightily in my life at one point to teach me some important lessons about my depression. Because Elijah is depressed here, yes? “ He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die.” That’s depression, people. A textbook case. And one of the first things to note about this is that it came after a mountaintop moment . . . which is not uncommon. We should prepare ourselves for a possible crash after a spiritual high , especially if we know we are naturally susceptible to such crashes. But what’s the first thing God did for him? He let him sleep.  Like, a lot. He slept, then he woke up to eat, then he slept again. I’ve learned that for me, a lot of my depression is connected to sleep deprivation. I’m TIRED. I need rest. Just getting a good nap usually helps my ou

I don’t watch any of those TV shows about police teams – you know, NCIS and its spin-offs, Law and Order and its spin-offs . . . none of them. Don’t have anything against them; just never got started and therefore never hooked. But every once in a while, I feel like I’m missing some cultural knowledge (and maybe vocabulary) because of my lack of exposure. For instance, apparently police officers these days (at least on these shows) wear these earbuds for two-way radios so they can communicate with headquarters? So, like, they have constant access to somebody “downtown” – that person may pop in at any moment and say something in their ear, and they can at any time hold down a button on some device (on their hip, I’m guessing?) and say something to their downtown person. Instant communication. Something like that? I can imagine it . . . I’ve probably seen it on some show sometime . . . but I don’t know the nitty-gritty of it all. The only reason I bring it up is because my friend u