Does He Love Me?

I feel like I have entered something of a quiet season. For me a little quiet is like gold, but too much can feel oppressive. Ok that's dramatic, its just that once again I am looking at the beginning of a long day which doesn't have much to fill it. That makes someone out there green with envy I know, but keep in mind I'm not on vacation, I'm home feeling the yucks.  Days 9-15 following an infusion are the point at which white blood cells are the lowest and I am at day 13 today, right in that window. I have some dental work that can't be fixed while on chemo, so I'm going to the dentist to see if I have an infection making me feel sick.  If its not the tooth, then I may need to limit being around groups of people. Work, exercise class, biweekly walks around the lake with my friend, fellowship events at church, church itself, dates with Ben or others, all have had to go by the wayside in some way or another during this season, which brings a lot more solitude to life.

All this time gives me time to think, a lot. I always end up pondering the things that matter to me most, like where am I going, and how does God feel about what I am doing? I've always asked God to tear down my flimsy construction job and build me up Himself.  What I mean is, I know I think wrong things, but I want to think God's way. First on that list these past few quiet days has been, "Do I really believe that God loves me? " I mean really loves me? Because if I really did there would be no room for doubt or fear, but to be honest, I've had plenty of both even though I am a follower and a believer. Where do I get off track? Sometimes its really easy to believe, and then there are times when I just can't.

Somehow I think the strength I need comes down to being able to answer this question in the affirmative. If I can't do that, then there is room for lots and lots of other things like fear to come in and take the place of my lost confidence...or other destructive dark clouds like disillusionment, frustration, hopelessness, cynicism or a critical spirit, to name a few. You see, if I truly believe that God loves me, that will affect every other single thing that I think or do in every situation. If He loves me, then my present lack is something that I go through with Him rather than retreat from Him licking my wounds of disillusionment. If He really loves me, then the fear of all those possible disasters I worry about lose their power. If He loves me, I can wait however long it takes to see my prayers answered, or not answered at all.

The problem is, the times when troubles come is when its really easy to doubt. We forget that Job went through an intense season of loss and suffering, but though he cursed the day he was born he never cursed his God. Jesus felt forsaken by His Father when he took on the sins of the whole world, "Father, why have You forsaken me?",  but He stayed on the cross and saw it through. Corrie Ten Boom, who wrote about the her suffering and the death of her entire immediate family in concentration camps in WWII, toured Europe after the war admonishing others to forgive each other as she also forgave her captors. They say that in the years before death as she lay in a coma that the power of the Holy Spirit was so strong in her room that it made people weep who went to visit her. I visited my friend a little while ago who was in her last few days on this earth because of cancer, who put her arms around my shoulders and prayed that God would heal me so that I could live.  Start looking around and you too will find that you don't have to go far to find people living in the power of believing that God loves them.

The bible says that faith, hope and love exist, but the greatest of them all is love. Although in context it refers to the value of what we offer to others, I've seen a new wrinkle to its meaning in this meditation. I believe love is the greatest of them all for the additional reason that it makes faith and hope possible.

I'll bet most of you don't know this, but if you have always had hair and then you have none, its like the tinfoil got removed and you have a clearer connection with the other world. Its much more difficult to be pretentious when you head is uncovered, easy to feel vulnerable, but also more free to be emotionally unrestrained. Spiritually, this is a good place to be. Maybe for some of us that is what the whole journey is about, to be more attentive, more honest, to communicate with God from the heart rather than just the mind, and to get to the root of things...like answering the question straight on without shrinking back, "Does He love me?"  If I can accept that the answer is yes, then no matter what is going on in my life at the moment, abundant life is possible right here today.

So that's what I'm thinking about this quiet day!

Prospering

We let our chickens have free run of our property now that the dogs leave them alone. Yesterday a coyote came to the other side of the fence on got everyone in a dither.  Sick me was trying to relax on the porch, but they all moved in closer to the house and squawked like mad, for a few hours. Then one ate the egg of another and I started to lose my cool.  I begged my son running off to church to corral them back into the hen house far away in the corner. "My ride is waiting!" followed by my pathetic "OK just go then".  The ride waited, the son chased chickens, and the subsequent peace was as wonderful as a savory piece of dark chocolate with nuts and dried fruit.  Granted everything ached, but its embarrassing how easily I lost control of my well- honed maturity, over chickens!

When you are stripped a bit, of your glory, your strength, your peace, whatever, I'm experiencing just a taste of how easy it is to lose a grip on joy.  I don't mean party party fun fun, but that joy that keeps us feeling balanced and hopeful and moving ahead in our "groove".  Balanced.  My faith can get out of balance too. To me faith is like air, its what keeps me alive, it gives me a reason for being here, it gives me hope for what comes next and that makes now doable. So faith out of balance throws everything off for me, just like chickens can. I've been thinking quite a bit lately of some people I really care about who are tired. Bodies, hope, faith, tired.  We never plan to be worn out or wrung dry,  rather we envision our heart felt hopes coming to life like a movie with ourselves in the leading role, a good movie! The turns life takes can be quite a surprise. Do you understand God's ways?  I often don't. That's why I was so captivated today by Psalms 1.

I like to read the bible with a journal in my other hand and I ask LOTS of questions.  This one is about being blessed, feeling blessed, living a blessed life. I want that, and I want it for the people I love too! A person who is blessed will meditate on God's law and strive to live it. Yikes, that takes time. Then he/she will bear fruit in the right season. Plums are ripe right now, as sweet as sugar, beautiful even to look at, but my fig tree is covered with hard little green figs which are definitely not ready to eat. There is a season for fruit, and it isn't every season. So its ok to feel tired, to see nothing come to fruition that you hope for, to feel off track or sidelined? I suppose so! That gives me grace, breathing room to sit around with no hair,  to be frozen and to be out of season.

"Whose leaf shall not wither"...I also have some orange trees whose leaves are curling in on themselves. That means we need to turn on the water and soak the roots.  A blessed person who meditates and lives by God's laws may not look like they are fruitful when it is not their season for fruit, but their roots are planted by a river of water so their leaves never dry out in a pre death wither no matter what the season, unlike the Chassen orange trees at this moment. The water where I live is expensive and has to be turned on, but this blessed person who meditates on and lives by God's law is rooted next to a continual river of water that keeps them spiritually alive.

The kicker for me today was, "And whatever he/she does will prosper." An immediate question in the journal, "Do you mean prosper financially?" Prosper in what, and how? Let's see, God Himself found money in the belly of a fish when He needed it to pay the temple taxes, but other than that it seems that what He needed to live was supplied daily, not accumulated in store houses or bank accounts.  Looking at His life, He prospered in fulfilling His Father's will for His life.  Do we set out to conquer the Roman empire and end up somewhere much less awe inspiring? What if keeping your faith in adversity by accepting what you cannot change,  choosing humility rather than bitterness, loving more today than yesterday because you nurtured a maturity that enables you to just keep doing it, ...what if that means you have prospered in all that you do?

Jesus asked His close companion and disciple Peter, "Peter, do you love (agapan) Me?" One translator rephrased it for understanding this way, "Do you love Me because I am precious to you, with a sacrificial love which would make you willing to die for me?" He actually asked Peter three times in a row but got only this answer, "Yes Lord, You know I am fond of (philein) You;". or "I have an affection for You because of the pleasure I take in You. "  Perhaps suffering or  disappointment is a completely unique, one of a kind place, with death tangibly present and pleasure painfully absent, where we can give the answer to Jesus that He longs to hear from us.  Perhaps this is what it means to prosper in all that we do.

Can I embrace suffering for how it prospers? It's a good question, and I think that finding the correct answer can restore balance to a day, a year, or even a life where joy has slipped away.

John 21:15

Tea Cup Revival

For those of you who are keeping track, I wanted to follow up a bit more quickly because I sounded so discouraged a few days ago in my last post. Honesty brought that to you, but now for the outcome.  I never got to sleep, but instead was the lucky recipient of a literal tea party right there in my honor in the infusion center! I must say I was the only one with such a celebration there yesterday. My dear friend brought beautiful china cups with red roses painted on them which had belonged to her deceased and beloved mother! This woman always shows me what it is like to SHOW how you care inside.

I didn't need much more than the cups to feel like crying, but they were followed by cucumber and creamed cheese finger sandwiches, (real tea food), strawberries and little tea cookies. Ah, and the hot tea from a thermos of course. I never went to sleep, it was just way too fun. So much for infusion center blues. I felt compassion for my fellow infusies who had very quiet, nose in a book supporters and who themselves were either drugged to sleep or just zoning off with something in their headphones. I on the other hand had fun and it took away all the yuck completely for both Julia and I!

So how else does God revive the discouraged?  I actually got to go for a walk around the lake with my beloved husband that afternoon; the bad feelings won't kick in for a few days. And ice cream with the cake, we got to sit looking at the beautiful lake and talk. It's so good to be away from the house and hard to come by these days with lack of time and lots of kids and broken cars to keep going. But there we were, quietly talking about things near and dear to the heart that I only share with him, and I've missed being able to do that so much lately.

I want to be revived when I pray. I have much to learn in that area, but one thing my amazingly wise husband always reminds emotional me is that there are other things I should be holding on to than a desire for an emotional experience when I pray, and they are so good I thought I might just share them with you too.

1) I am saved, and that is a treasure I need to reflect on first whenever I talk God...my helmet of salvation if you are familiar with the Ephesians 6 armor.

2) I come to Him covered with unearned righteousness because of what He did, nothing I do...my beautiful breastplate of righteousness. Now I do confess my sins I am aware of from day to day living because they burden my soul and grieve or sadden the heart of God.

3) I always start off by reading His word because it is the only real truth (is that redundant?) in the universe. It tells me who He is and what He wants from me/us...my "hold it all together" belt of truth.

4) When I feel weak its harder to move on to the rest, but remembering those things above makes it possible. I hold up my shield of faith, I practice faith, I decide to have faith for the things that trouble me, meaning I courageously and humbly ask for His help instead of relying on myself...my life saving shield of faith.

5) Hopefully at this point I have have enlivened enough faith to use my sword, His word of truth. Does it not say that He is near to the broken hearted? Does it not say that if I draw near to Him He will draw near to me? Does it not say that He loved me even when I was lost in my sins, and even now that I am not lost in them but simply tormented by heart problems from living here still with a sin nature?  I know these things because of the word of truth, and now I use them to encourage myself and build up my faith, and it gives me the strength to pray.

The final piece of armor is to have my feet covered with the good news about His mercy and forgiveness to sinners like you and me. Well, here I am sharing the good news so I guess I have my shoes on.

But really, emotional me wants an emotional moment, and those come few and far between.  Though feeling raw and weak, I managed to fumble with my pieces of armor through tears and with my baby smooth head held in my hands. I didn't look like much of a warrior to anyone who might have seen, but I guess a lifestyle of focusing on them daily in better times gave me muscle memory that took over when I was drunk with discouragement. How did prayer revive my heart  this time? It's always different, but usually never the direct, personal communication from my heavenly Father that I would choose. This time it was rose covered tea cups and a walk in the park with the one I love.  Christ loving me through His body, the hands, feet and words that come from others to me.

I feel alive again.




PS- If this time is anything like the last, I'm good until Friday night or Saturday and then the fun begins...so I'm living it up right now before it starts saving me from escapee cancer cells!

A New Name

(with a gift from the Poway Wrestlers and lots of hair)

Honestly, I'm not looking forward to what tomorrow brings. I should though because it brings a better prognosis for getting rid of everything that might have settled elsewhere but can't be seen. But the baby side of me doesn't want to have that stuff pumped into my veins, and then all of the subsequent strange and varied sensations it brings for a few days, and that is putting it very nicely.  They put me to sleep last time with a wonderful anti-nausea inserted into the drip tube and the only thing I really remember now is going there. Once again my sweet daughter will be my constant companion, along with one dear friend who will come and keep her company while I catch flies.  She told me today that last time there was quite an interesting young man sitting in the chair across from me who looked to be her same age. He ate a non stop banquet of sandwiches, cokes and chips while carrying on a spirited conversation with his parents as life/death was being inserted into his veins.  An admirable attitude; I'll look more carefully before I go to sleep this time!

I've had a rotten attitude these past few days, so bad that I have avoided people I can't help but be transparent with because they know me too well. Can I blame it on the exciting journey of chemo induced menopause that I am now on,  frustration about tomorrow, missing my husband who has had to work long hours, or all of the above? Perhaps, but I say this to spotlight the truth, that despite the many things it may seem that I am learning on this journey, I am most definitely a pilgrim in progress like anyone else.  There are some people who don't seem to struggle much with their faith, and its not so much that I doubt His realness, rather I question His decisions like a rebellious child. Can anyone relate?

I've been reading "Hind's Feet on High Places" again lately because I nice soul gave it as a gift. Synopsis, it's an allegory about the spiritual journey of a Christ follower. Her name is Much-Afraid and she lives in the Valley of Humiliation with her menacing relatives the Fearings who want to marry her off to her dreadful cousin Craven Fear.  Fortunately she has met the Good Shepherd from the High Places in the mountains and He promises to take her there to a place filled with the greatest of joys. She escapes her relatives despite her cousins Pride, Self-Pity and Bitterness who are sent to force her to stay. Oh, did I forget that the Shepherd chose two companions to be with her on the journey? I was expecting Love, Joy or Peace and forgot that they were actually two veiled sisters named Sorrow and Suffering!

“When you wear the weed of impatience in your heart instead of the flower Acceptance-with-Joy, you will always find your enemies get an advantage over you.” 
― Hannah Hurnard, Hinds' Feet on High Places

Where I am in the story now the road has turned away from the far away mountains and is taking her in the opposite direction into the Desert of Loneliness. I found her inner struggle with intense disappointment and discouragement over this turn in the road quite interesting. The Shepherd told her that many had traveled this very same road before her, and each one that got through to the other side became royalty.  Much-Afraid is constantly tormented by her cousins who mock her along the way in this valley, but despite her inner turmoil, in the end she makes the hard decision to trust the promises that the loving Shepherd has made to her, even with difficult companions all around. Does any of this sound familiar? It does to this rebellious child; I should make more such decisions when the going gets rough.

I was in such a foul mood yesterday when I went to get my blood drawn that I'm afraid that I was outright unkind to someone in the cancer club I am now a part of.  A very fit looking man about my age who was having blood drawn like me overheard me say the name of my oncologist. When I sat to wait my turn, he being the only other person there made the friendly gesture of mentioning that he had the same doctor. Was this a new pick up line? I said "Oh", and buried my nose in a magazine. It got uncomfortable. I started to feel bad just in case his motives were completely innocent, and what was I thinking anyhow sitting there looking like a sheik?  But it was too late to say something friendly like, "Oh he's your doctor too, I'm so sorry for what you are going through." The thought occured to me later how easy it is to be rotten to people when you feel that way yourself.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't mention earlier that on shave day I had them leave about 3/8 ths of an inch for a little suggestion of hair. Today all the fuzz started pouring down between my shirt and back, so I entreated my sweet daughter to go at it with a smooth razor and some shaving cream. Wow, it's REALLY like starting over now...like knitting a sweater and pulling it all apart when it's half way done, or going on a long, long journey and turning around long after the mid point because something crucial was forgotten at home, or dropping the freshly made lasagna on the floor...starting all over. I'm good with that. I happen to know that Much-Afraid is going to get a new name and good strong legs to replace her crippled ones when her journey is done.  I am going to do the same right?  Now I could call myself something like "Questions-Much" or "Trusts-Too-Little", but what it will be changed to when my journey is over? I really don't know yet, we'll have to wait and see.

“O Shepherd. You said you would make my feet like hinds' feet and set me upon High Places".

"Well", he answered "the only way to develop hinds' feet is to go by the paths which the hinds use.” 

“The heart knoweth its own sorrow and there are times when, like David, it is comforting to think that our tears are put in a bottle and not one of them forgotten by the one who leads us in paths of sorrow.” 

― Hannah Hurnard, Hinds' Feet on High Places

Shave Day

(This is my new little nephew,  a man who really understands me.)

It finally happened. I kept wiping stray hairs off the bathroom sink like I do every day before leaving, but it took me so long to do it. I didn't notice as my mind was far away thinking about the carpool I was running to pick up.  Then back again to brush my teeth, ran my fingers through my hair a few times, and there I was again with a tissue, picking up stray hairs, over and over...and then the lightbulb turned on. Today is the day...shave day. I had decided to get it shaved off when it started to fall out, so that's what I did. If you are a woman, there are few days in your life that compare to shave day, and Lord willing most of you will never have one anyhow.

What to compare it to?  The day you got braces? The day you cut your childhood long hair off for the first time? The day you got into into a non injury car accident?  I don't know, hard to say for anyone else. For me its the day Leviticus 14:8 came to life, "he (the leper) shall shave off all his hair.." whoopee! I never realized when I read this years ago that I would really relate to it one day in such a personal and tangible way.  I have to say it was much easier than getting it cut short.  I will even go so far as to say that I feel unemotional about it, but still thought I should report it as a landmarker of significance in this journey.

You might have read the post where I explained what it felt like the last time I came out of anesthesia  following my second operation. I called it shredded world because that is how I remember it looked to my consciousness at the time. I remember feeling like a soul without a body. Well, today I feel a little bit the same, only this time a woman without any hair.

Hair does fit you into one slot or another. If its pencil straight, long and parted in the middle, you're in high school. If its gray, curled, and close cut to your head, your might be in the grandma group. If it's somewhere in between and colored, then you're probably in the in between ages, like where I have been hanging out for a few decades. But now, I'm just me. Not young me, old me, or middle aged me, at least as one is categorized by hair style and color, just Molly. Hmmm. I'm getting a feel for the Leviticus 14 leper,  something like being a chalkboard that is wiped clean with a damp cloth, or a floor that is swept and mopped.

With God I have learned there are no coincidences, rather He is aware of every detail and often coordinates them in miraculous provisional or instructional ways. I told my friend today about my one and only baby picture, a birth announcement sent to my grandmother (on mom's side) which was taken the day I was born, and by the way I had more hair then. The "why there is only one" is too long to tell now, but the story goes that when I got married our photographer made a slide show of Ben and I growing up, and guess which one picture could never be found again?!?  I was so upset about that I whined and complained to everyone, which included the creator of the universe.

A long time later I found a box with papers that had been cleared from my deceased grandfather's (on my dad's side of the family) bottom desk drawer.  Twenty five years before, for whatever reason, he threw a birth announcement of one of his four grandchildren into that drawer and it was soon lost in a collection of old wills, work papers, maps and the like. I was sorting though all the junk as a favor to my parents, and I still remember the moment I once again saw my little black and white, one eye swollen shut birth face again, and I couldn't believe the miracle!  Before I ever lost my copy of that photo years later He had answered my prayer with a thoughtless stashing away of an old picture in a bottom desk drawer!

Things like that story have trained me to consider the small things in life as significant because obviously nothing is too small to be significant to my Lord. So I've lost my hair. Is this significant? Yes! Why? Well that is part of the discovery phase. Why Lord? Why is this small detail important? What am I to learn from this? What are you saying to me while I am here? The leper didn't understand the drops of blood but I do. There is always something to leave behind, an old way of thinking, an old way of feeling that has made a groove in the soul which needs to be resisted. I'm willing, I'm actually excited. I know what these grooves are because He and I have been "dialoging" for a long time about a few of them. I just happen to be one of the most stubborn people He ever made so everything takes a long time to change.  It's been long enough already, so here's to new beginnings, and  of course, new hair one day down the road.

Expectations

                                  (Picture borrowed from my young friend Lauren now serving in S. Africa)

We had a great annual July 4th party this year with the help of some very sweet friends to make it happen. Pulled it off despite all the drama just as I expected we would, though I've been recovering with my feet up ever since. Good thing I like to contemplate the sky, which from my balcony off the kitchen is like a Monet or Rembrandt in constant, creative motion. Which leads me to thoughts that flow just like the clouds.

First thought...I am signed up for future pain in 10 more days. What a strange thing, to pre-plan your pain, but I suppose anyone facing something like a scheduled surgery knows what I mean. Time to think about something else.  Second thought...why am I sitting here by myself?  Answer, because my family is doing normal living things and I have been set aside for a season of quiet moments. Is this bad? Am I being punished, or how should I consider my suddenly still life? Does God love me or is He busy elsewhere doing great things for someone else?

I know He loves me, but oh how many times I get close to questioning that. Never though like how I did in the season I just got cut off a week ago Friday, that four years of hair growth with all of its files of information about me.  It's personal to me, this high thing that exalted itself against the love of God, your own reason for doubting would be different.  What remains the same though is this, the shattered expectations which leave you thinking that your really can't trust anyone anymore, even Him. I've rarely struggled so hard to put something behind me like what I now contemplate with clouds reflecting on my iris, that to which I had attached such uncompromising expectations.

This painting in the sky tosses about the two o'clock sunshine, other moms are sitting at sports events or thinking about what to make for dinner and my family goes about its living,  I come to the realization that I am backed up against a doctrinal wall. Either God is not good, or my expectations of what He would do or not were misguided, wrong, mine not His.  A courtroom prosecution and defense don't usually agree to a tie so they can both go home winners, and in the same way either God or I will have to take the blame for making a mistake. It doesn't take much glorious sky watching to figure out which one of us is going to do that.

What a humiliating and painful experience that is, to admit that what I have clung to with clenched fist and spent many a day drowning in depression over was something I should not have been holding on to the first place. Ouch! It leaves me feeling like a crumpled heap on the floor, a defeated warrior who sided with the wrong army and is now lying with non mortal but painful wounds on the battlefield.  This drifted by in casual conversation the other day "Whatever you think you deserve is probably a form of idolatry," and it stuck to my collection of words from God to me on this topic. Do I have the courage to be expectation free, to suffer want, to be disappointed, to live with what is, to accept? Not usually. Is that why I am sitting here looking at clouds, because I needed the time to come to this painful conclusion, to piece together all of the things I've been seeing and hearing and reading which together feel like God answering me from across the table?

I've decided that unmet expectations will keep killing my faith if I insist on holding on to them in the future, like in the next 10 minutes. It's hard to live a surrendered life, to trust God enough when things aren't going my way or anything like what I expected.  Like David pleading for God to save his life in Psalm 71:12-14,"

O God, do not be far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!
Let them be confounded and 
consumed
Who are adversaries of my life;
Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor
Who seek my hurt.

BUT I WILL HOPE CONTINUALLY (caps mine)
And will praise You yet more and more.

What will I hope in continually? I will hope in the goodness of God, despite anything that brings witness to the contrary.  When you look at it this way, cancer isn't compromising my health...rather its  giving me time to slow down and come back to life.

https://www.facebook.com/MollyChassenPrayerAndSupport?fref=ts

Hanging Out in the The Twilight Zone

(morning light from my balcony a few years ago)

I've been trying to write this next post now for two days but for some reason there is a block. I've erased three different tries already! I think what is happening is that it takes me a lot of time to think things through, to read, contemplate, analyze, emotionalize, and it dawned on me last night that my life got relocated to the twilight zone.  I'm off balance, I would like my old life back because it was predictable and familiar.  Things don't feel the same inside; and I can't predict when they will run their course as I normally would with something like the flu because this came from the infusion center at the Sharp Reese Stealy Outpatient Hospital Pavilion.  I liken it to what you might expect if the formaldehyde that pickled the frog for junior high biology class was transferred to a plastic tube and inserted through a needle into your veins for a few hours...so here I am.

My neck is exposed to the world now; more wrinkles than I used to notice, and who is that woman standing in the kitchen (they get confused). I do miss cooking, my little domain. There have been thankfully only two real "you have to remain horizontal or pay the price" chemo days in this first go around, thankfully, but what's leftover isn't quite the same. Lately I don't go to work, shop, exercise, make dinner as often, give a ride, attend, I've just been waiting for the next strange sensation of pain,  or  maybe for a super nice person to show up at my door. The Twilight Zone!

So what's next? I just heard that there is a young woman somewhere out there who just had all of her hair removed and that in some way reading my last post was an encouragement. Well if that isn't making lemonade out of lemons then I don't know what is! Only I am not even where she is yet...I'm suspended between two places... not my long- haired self or the honeydew melon I will soon be. Am I kicked out of the chosen few then (see last post)? Am I not contemplating God's amazing grace when I look in the mirror each morning?

Actually my mirror looking is with a great deal of wonder, at how so much hair can deny gravity by standing up straight! (Part of the Zone) And yes I am contemplating God's amazing grace in my  beloved recliner camp chair that Ben brought home for me to plant myself in for long periods of time when needed.  It dawned on me that I am experiencing what the lepers did when the drops of blood were placed on their ear lobe, thumb and big toe in the cleansing ritual. Though they did not realize that this act foreshadowed the actions of God's Son who would bleed in all of those places in order to secure absolute acquittal for all of their filth, their participation and blind acceptance of it placed them in line for the grace yet to come.  My short, almost gone hair puts me in line too for the real thing, which is apparently right around the corner.

I feel strongly that a time like this is definitely a time to divide the history of one's life, the time before and the time after, let them be different. Let's move beyond where we were, not come back to hair and cooking and work with our understanding of our place in the cosmos still the same. Since we have been set aside, let's consider it all. You see, twilight is the reflection of the sun from beneath the horizon where it illuminates the features of the sky like a spotlight  set beneath a stage. Though we might normally think of twilight as the end of the day, the winding down of something that was once bright, it could just as well be considered the light of the the sun that illuminates and beautifies by casting a rainbow of shadows for the hope of a new day. That's where my heart is.  Jesus said, "Behold, I make all things new."

Just how new? I don't think any of us actually live with a full understanding of what that means, including myself. I was always told as child that God loved me, and my parents loved me so it was easy to believe.  But like anyone else, I'm painfully aware of my faults. No matter who you are, you are aware that there is some moral standard that you have failed to keep. By the way, I know beyond any doubt that there are some very smelly, dirty looking people who are much more aware of this gap than others who regularly put an iron to their clothes.  Does that gap bother you? Feel guilty? I do sometimes more than others. When I do stop to think about it I feel worse; being too busy to contemplate is a temporary pain killer but it never heals.

New means new, unused, completely different than the old. What happened to God's Son, the blood He shed, the life He gave, makes all things new. That means that your and my right standing before God can be made completely new. When the head is bald, can you style the hair? Straighten it? Condition it? Do SOMETHING to it? No, and that is exactly the same way it is with our cleanness in God's eyes. We literally cannot contribute. Do you get that? Honestly I'm grasping at it.

 If you've ever seen John 3:16 at a football game,

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

well this is what it means. God loved us so much that He gave His Son to die in our place so that our guilt before Him could be completely eliminated. Short of believing this and receiving it, you can't contribute, it's too big.  Our pride is too big really, that might be the largest obstacle of all. But if you will, watch the morning unfold while you mull this over. Think about your right standing with God. It is possible. You cannot contribute. You can only accept it and thank Him for it. And especially if slowing down reminds you of all your faults...be assured that You are loved anyhow, just as you are right now with all of the wrong things you have ever done still being a part of your history or your present.

Now, what to do with all of those guilt burdens which have indeed transgressed God's moral law, besides just wish they had never happened? That sounds like something good to talk about next time... in the Twilight Zone.

Revelations 21:5
Romans 5:19
John 1:3
Hebrews 2:14
Hebrews 4:15