Category Archives: SPIRITUAL INTEREST

Posted on

God Made, Loves, and Keeps Me

“My mother didn’t want me,” the woman commented to the women assembled around decorative tables for the Mother’s Day Tea. She paused, waiting for her statement to sink in. “Really. She didn’t want me.” Watching this lovely woman speak, with her beautiful smile and twinkling eyes, made her statement seem ludicrous. I thought she was joking at first. “I was my mother’s last child, the fourth. My siblings knew it too (that she didn’t want me). When I was a baby they took me to the neighbors and tried to give me away.” She paused again and looked out at us. I chuckled imagining the scene, the ladies in the room giggled thinking it was funny. The pause grew in length. The woman’s face remained serious, she wasn’t laughing. Then her voice quivered, “It may seem funny now, but it wasn’t for me.” I realized our mirth was misplaced and wished I hadn’t laughed.

She was dead serious. This lovely woman of God, beautiful in feature and dress, had been unwanted by her mother when she was a child. What a contradiction her words seemed in contrast to the gracious woman standing in front of us. It was hard to believe. She looked down at her cupped hand where she held a rock, one she had chosen moments before from a basket of gems that had been sent around the room by the speaker, who had used them as an illustration to anchor a thought.

“You see,” She said to us, “I picked a plain colorless gray rock. It’s not much to look at, is it? (pause) It’s like me. Plain and ordinary, that is how I see myself.” The contradiction grew stronger, her words were in contrast to her beauty, her very features glowed with a freshness, an invigorating presence, an inner sanctuary of a woman who knows God in an intimate way. I sensed she was gaining peace with God. Her words arrested everyone’s attention. The room became completely still. The pause included all of us now. We wondered what she would say next.

“God made me, God loves me, and God keeps me.” She read the words etched  in her own script on the back of a bookmark like we’d all been given at the tea. “You can know Him.” (pause) “He will keep you too.” Her voice drew us to the words of life, much like a droplet of water is absorbed by a sponge. I had been the speaker for the Spring Tea, I was the one who had passed the basket full of colorful rocks around for each woman to pick out a rock for their own, later to hold in their palm as I would read the words that had been written so long ago by St. Julian of Norwich in the fifteenth century. I would quote words that she had been given in a vision of sorts, where she saw herself holding a little hazelnut in her hand and these words came to her. “God maketh it. God loveth it. God keepeth it.”

St. Julian’s words had been adapted to personalize the message for my audience. I closed my talk with the thought that God made each of us. He loves all of us. And He will keep us because each one of us is important to Him. The music of God’s goodness came to me as I listened to this woman speak and wrap up the meeting. I could tell she was wanting to communicate a fitting closure. God was growing a light inference from the past, this historic triplet, into words of comfort, peace and healing–and in such a way that passes all human understanding. “God made me, He did. God loves me, He does love me. God keeps me, because He is a good God.” Her words spilled forth as her sober comment now became one of joy. She continued on to invite everyone in the room to know the Maker, the Lover, and the Keeper of Whom she spoke and in Whom she has put her faith and belief. A radiance slipped into the room full of daughters and mothers as we knelt with our hearts at our Maker’s feet. These were precious words to keep close and remember forever.

God made me. God loves me. God keeps me. Adapted, Julian of Norwich
Click To Tweet

God made me. God loves me. God keeps me. Thank you, dear God, for giving those words to Julian of Norwich. We all need to know we’re loved and kept, and that You, dear God did make us according to Your design. Thank you for encouraging that lovely lady on that day to speak up and share her painful past in order to draw our attention to Your love for her and for us. Something seemed to complete in her as she said them. It felt as if we were watching a miracle as You touched her soul. The truth is, we all feel worthless at times just like her. Thank you for loving, keeping, and making us. Amen

Side Note: The woman I spoke of has been battling a very serious health issue which has required special treatment in a clinic out of state. A couple of years ago a crowdfunding effort was being made on her behalf. She is still with us. Praises to God.

 

Posted on

A Lost Cause, A Spiritual Defeat, and What Does it Mean?

We, at times, wonder where God is at. We wonder why he hasn’t intervened. We wonder about ourselves. We wonder where we have fallen short, where we have failed, if we’ve been heading a wrong direction or wasting time pursuing a dream. It is confusing at best.

I went to a high school graduation tonight. It was a celebration for the students graduating. That part was wonderful. But it was also a sad day because, most likely, this is the school’s final class of graduates. Unless God intervenes, the school will be closing its doors permanently in the next few weeks. It is a private Christian high school. Originally it served 7th-12th grades. For the past four years many folks, most of them parents, have been trying to save the school. Some risked a lot to try to bring the school back to life, to resuscitate it when it seemed to be on the countdown to life-support. For the past two years, four teachers and a principal have served with little or no pay because they believed in its mission. Because of declining enrollment, some stepped aside and some moved on though they wanted to stay. When things are heading south, people start bailing. It was this way for the school. Prayer has been ongoing. Many didn’t want to let it go. They believed in the school. The problem is, you have to have students to have a school. And families in the area were no longer supporting the effort.

It makes me sad. I remember back when the school was started by a handful of parents some twenty-four years ago. It was started on prayer and a need. All five of my children attended the school for junior high and my youngest, for five years. We scraped money together to afford it.

Tonight the probable closing of the school was announced. I talked with the principal and others. All the time I was thinking about the vision that started the school and the way God brought it into existence. One of my friends was instrumental in its founding. Things fell into place and it was one of those remarkable God-things. I felt a down-pull as my emotions pooled in a state of nostalgia. It seemed strange to me that there were so few in attendance as this noble institution is spluttering to its quiet end. But I don’t like it. I feel the Christian community has abandoned the school by not caring or supporting it well. But am I to judge this? I think not.

Where is God in this? What is his will? What part do we take ownership of? Where have we failed? Truly I do not have answers. I only have questions.  There are times when we seek to understand but the answers seem to elude us. Yet we persevere on. We know God is good so we accept what he give us. We sacrifice and follow him even when the trail is not well-marked and the signposts are unclear. When it comes down to it, we realize that we must be obedient and trusting despite everything else. We cannot always effect change. There is much that God does not reveal to us, and that is okay. But it can be hard to discern whether to stop or go when we’re up against it.

Two years ago the school almost closed, enrollment was not looking good, the school’s physical location was a problem, teachers were in limbo. An important meeting was held to discuss this, former students and their parents were invited. My daughter and I decided to attend even though we had switched out one year prior in order for her to pursue an education in a charter high school which offered an emphasis in musical training. It was decision time for the school board. They saw little hope. They said it was over. Then one pastor stood in the gap and championed the cause. The pastor spoke up. He said that he felt God wanted him to help save the school, not that he needed another something to do. He told us that night, that he had promised God that he would step up if nobody else did…and nobody else did. He said to those in the room, let’s give it two more weeks and see if there are X amount of students. If so, he thought the school should remain open.

g graduationMy daughter’s heart started pounding. On the way home she said to me that she felt God wanted her to return. I found my thoughts disagreeing, I felt it would be a poor decision because the fine arts school had the better opportunities and she was happy there. However, she was fairly convinced this was God’s leading, and I could not be against that part. We decided to pray about it for a week, but it felt like we were praying cross-purposes. That week was a long one. The talk, when it came, lasted for hours into the wee hours of the morning. Finally, she said to me through her tears, “You’ve always told me to follow where God leads me, to do his will. I’ve been praying for months for God to show me. I believe God wants me at CCS. No, it’s not where I prefer to go, but I believe it is where God wants me to go.” End of argument. That convinced me that I should support her. With that, my daughter left a school where she was thriving to finish her senior year at the Christian high school where she would be the only senior. She was its lone graduate in 2015.

After his speech that night, a few others followed the pastor. He gave it his all. He became president of the board. The school moved to a different location, to a place that had been vacant for ten years, a former athletic facility. Hard working people poured money, blood, sweat and tears into making it work. They refinished, refurbished, rebuilt areas of the building. They advertised, they visited churches, they talked it up. But the finances didn’t come in and the students didn’t enroll. A few months later they were shut out. It was a defeat. The pastor believed in the mission with his whole heart. But it was too much or too late. I’ve been told by a source that when this happened to the school, the pastor knew it was time to move out of the way, that his time was up and the chips would fall where they were going to fall. He stepped down mid-year, a disheartened and discouraged man. I know he fulfilled the test. He was like David going to defeat Goliath, he was courageous, but he and the school never had the opportunity for a victory dance. Yet God knew his heart and I believe there is a reward waiting for him in glory. Things don’t always turn out right or the way we believe they should even when we are doing it for the Lord and are convinced he is in it.

What we must do is to remain steadfast in what God gives us to do. When it is over, it is then that we must accept the proverbial closed door even though we would rather not. The success comes with how we face the struggle, how we live it, and how we trust God in it. We can’t measure the worthiness of something by human effort or standards of success. God is in control and we are not.