Where Was God When I Needed Him?

That Thursday night my husband, Pat and I felt lucky. We’d been given the use of a beach apartment to work on our writing projects. The first evening in our comfortable abode, we were happily concentrated on watching a Tom Cruise movie in the living room when out of the blue a man’s quiet, controlled voice made our hearts stop: "I’m not going to hurt you if you cooperate with me. I just want your money."

I looked up to see a young man in baggy sweat pants and jacket standing a couple of yards away, a dark blue cap planted backwards on his head. He appeared to be about 25 years of age, his coffee-colored face pitted by acne. He had materialized out of nowhere, just like Jesus in the upper room after the resurrection, even though our door and windows were locked, and now I knew that the disciples’ collective heart must have pounded like a million African drums, draining the blood from their faces when they looked up and saw Jesus standing quietly in the room. But this man wasn’t Jesus and he didn’t say, “Peace be with you.” He flashed a knife. For a split second the scene seemed surreal, but in the next second harsh reality crashed through my consciousness, and a torrent of fear and adrenalin raced through me like a runaway freight train… and then an inexplicable calm settled over me.

"Here’s my wallet," Pat said to our intruder, grimly handing it over. Discovering we were unarmed, he eagerly grabbed Pat’s wallet, holding his hands close to his face as his fingers rapidly flipped through the bills. He then scattered Pat’s credit cards on the table saying he didn’t want them, but took our cell phones. Quickly he moved toward the refrigerator, found a bottle of coke and gulped it down, then abruptly turned to me and asked if I had any money. I reluctantly admitted I did and he ordered me to get it.

He moved nervously about the room like a tiger stalking his prey, eyes darting in all directions. Suddenly he said, "Do you have a car?" Pat replied in the affirmative. "I want you to take me away from here in your car." Pat balked. Suddenly he seized our laptop case, throwing out the papers that were inside, picked up both our laptops, pulling the cords from the outlets and began stuffing them in the case. "Listen, man,” Pat argued, “We’re missionaries and our work is in those computers. Please, don’t take them." The robber paused to reconsider. Now he could negotiate. "If you take me away in your car, I won’t take your computers." It was a hard bargain. Slowly Pat got up from the couch looking like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. I looked at my husband, admiring his strength and courage to consent to this indecent proposal. Pat would have to ride down the elevator with this armed person, walk together with him into the dark garage and drive off into the black night. And the apartment building was all but empty. But it was settled. They headed toward the door, but abruptly the robber turned around, taking large steps toward the kitchen, opened the silverware drawer and pulled out two serrated table knives. "Hey, man!" Pat chided him, "Why do you need those?" He didn’t reply.

Armed now with three knives, he and Pat walked calmly together out the front door of the apartment as if he’d been our evening guest, and then abruptly he stuck his head back in the room, as if he’d forgotten something, looked at me and said, "Don’t worry about your husband. He’ll be back in five minutes." He sounded so sincere, but why should I trust him? I didn’t know how to respond and surprised myself as the words tumbled unbidden out of my mouth, "God bless you," I said quietly as I closed the door. The key turned in the lock and I was suddenly all alone.

I had no phone and I was locked in. What should I do? Afraid a quick response from the police might provoke a violent reaction from the robber, I crouched down to peek out the window that opened to the street. In a few minutes, the garage door opened slowly and my eyes remained riveted on our dark blue Fiat Palio as it slowly exited, turned down the street and out of sight into the night. The garage door closed silently behind them. Where was he taking my husband? "Oh, God! Oh, God!" I cried, unable to formulate a prayer. My heart pounded in my ears as my mind played out several imaginary scenes: he might make Pat drive him to another town, or to a deserted road, dump him off and take the car, or worse still, he might sink a knife into his heart if things turned ugly. "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!”

The angry cry of an unjustly-treated child rose within me, “Where were you, God? Where were you? The Bible says your angels were supposed to be camping round about us, so WHERE WERE THEY?” My words hit the ceiling, bouncing back to me in silent confusion and hurt. As the ugly night wrapped its cold arms around me, it felt like God had left the scene of an accident.

Just as I leaned out the window and hollered down to the caretaker that we’d been robbed, I heard voices. It was Pat talking to the caretakers—joy filled my heart. He was back, unharmed, and he was my hero! Strangely, the robber had been true to his word.

At the police’s suggestion, we spent that night in a hotel, and the next morning we had to make a tough decision: should we stay and face our fears or return home defeated? We tossed the options back and forth like tennis players and decided to stay.

It turned out to be a bad choice.

You can be sure that during the following days I obsessively checked window locks and peered out the windows dozens of times a day! When Thursday rolled around—our one week anniversary of the break-in—I felt increasingly uneasy as night approached. Pat went to sleep, but it was one in the morning when my body finally gave in, but before I drifted off, I prayed a very decisive prayer. “Dear God,” I pleaded, “pleeease don't let anyone break into our house tonight,” but before I could say 'amen' a disturbing thought popped into my mind. It was as if the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear, “You should pray, 'Not my will, but thine be done', just as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.” I knew the implications of saying that: it would mean a relinquishing of my request to God for safekeeping that night. It might mean a repeat of last Thursday's break-in. Yet, my heart's immediate response was “Yes, Lord, not my will, but thine be done,” and I shuddered inwardly at the implications of what I'd just said as I drifted off to sleep.

An hour later, I was jarred awake by Pat's anguished cry coming from the living room, “Neeeeedra!!” His constricted vocal chords left his voice strained and unnatural— like a wounded animal—and I jumped out of bed as a wave of terror washed through my entire being. I knew instinctively what had happened. Within seconds Pat appeared in the bedroom, the invader’s knife pressed to his back, ordering him to lie on the bed. We were face-to-face with the same guy who had robbed us a week before.
Empowered by his first successful robbery (we had reported the break-in that same night), he came back to clean out the house, taking one of our suitcases to hold all the loot, besides what he carried in his arms. And this time he took both of our laptops—and armed himself with more kitchen knives! It was déjà vu with Pat riding down the elevator with him—again, entering the dark garage—again and driving him away in the car—again! If the first robbery had left my theology on God’s protection hanging by a thin thread, this second one shattered it into a million tiny pieces.

As a child I remember feeling safe and protected by God while whizzing down the highway with my dad. My childish theology dictated that Christians couldn’t, not just wouldn't, have car accidents. God, our big daddy, wouldn’t allow his kids to get hurt. By the time I was an adolescent, however, I knew that childish idea was a fallacy, and racing over the gravel roads on our way to town in order to meet my dad’s teaching appointments, I no longer felt safe and silently prayed for protection. Maybe that was my problem with this assault: I still felt a little bit like that child in the back seat of my dad’s car, expecting God to give me an easy ride through life.

Recovering from the emotional aftermath of two armed robberies in one week is a lot like recovering from surgery: the gaping wounds have to heal from the inside out. On the outside, our life went on as usual, but on the inside, the wounds in my soul were still raw—exposed. I felt as unprotected as an orphan left to fend for himself. It seemed that God’s protection worked like the lottery—totally chance—you win some and lose some. Unlike my husband who accepted this experience as an unfortunate part of life, my mind demanded to know “the reason” this had happened to us. Did we do something that triggered it? Was it sin? Was it an attack of the devil? Could we have prevented it? I started checking off my list. No sin problem; in fact, my husband said his spiritual life had never been so good. Was it an attack of the enemy? Considering the fact that we were there primarily so Pat could finish his book, it seemed possible that the devil would try to stop the project. What bothered me the most, however, was the feeling that God had abandoned us when we needed him the most—except for the ring.

I brought my special diamond and sapphire ring with us knowing we were going to celebrate our wedding anniversary while there. The night of the second break-in, the robber picked up my perfume from the bathroom counter without seeing the ring box quietly sitting right next to it. Clearly, to me this was significant. Maybe God had been there after all? And there was the robber himself. He’d said the strangest things. During the first robbery he asked Pat, “Didn’t you hear me when I came in?” and “I only want your money.” And he told me “not to worry!” How funny was that? At the second robbery he said to Pat, “You left the window open for me.” (We thought all the windows were locked.) “Why didn’t you go home?” And, “I didn’t want to wake you.”

Like a coroner poking a dead corpse to find the cause of death, Pat and I have played through all the possible scenarios of what we should have or shouldn’t have done, but the “What if?” game has no winners. The unthinkable had happened and now we had to pick up the pieces. Here are the pieces I picked up that brought the ‘healing’ I so desperately needed.

1. We don’t live in Paradise. Adam and Eve’s sin was catastrophic. Just one disobedient act gave the devil what he wanted: a foothold on earth. Sin gave him that space, so when Adam and Eve opened the door, a flood of evil came rushing in. Remember Jesus’ encounter with the devil during his 40 days of temptation in the wilderness? The devil offered to give back the world to Jesus in exchange for his worship. .He couldn’t offer what wasn’t already his, and Jesus never contested the fact.

2. We live in a war zone. Satan hates everyone and lives to steal, kill and destroy—all the time! Like a satisfied animal licking his chops after devouring his prey, the devil is happy every time a disaster occurs, a marriage fails, a child is sick, or two countries go to war. God, however, has given free will to man as well as to angels, demons (those who opted to rebel against God), and the devil. This tension between the Creator’s will and the will of created beings is where we run up against a wall. How does it play out? These many free agents make decisions that have a ripple effect starting from the beginning of time until today, both on earth and in the heavens. One theologian says that in this war, God, the commander-in-chief, is the only one who knows how this interplay between God’s government and created beings unfolds. It is too complex for finite humans to understand.

3. Does God interfere? Yes. Certainly the Bible gives us ample illustrations of God stepping in to restrain evil—this far and no farther—as in the case of Job, yet not interfering in the case of the stoning of Stephen. When and why He does in some instances and apparently doesn’t in others is not for us to know (or perhaps, we are incapable of understanding its complexity like a child not comprehending calculus). This is where faith in God’s character comes in. We trust him even though we don’t understand everything that happens to us. Hebrews 11 gives us an impressive list of believers: some shut the mouths of lions and escaped death by the edge of the sword, others were chained in dungeons and some sawed in half. The writer to the Hebrews closes this chapter by saying that “All of these people… received God’s approval because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.”

4. We are to pray against evil. Although I’ve been praying the Lord’s Prayer since a child, the phrase, “Deliver us from evil,” has new meaning for me. God is calling us to be actively engaged in war against the designs of the enemy. His calling us to prayer isn’t a childish game to humor us. God is giving us the privilege of helping to shape the outcome of events! He needs our help. He’s asking for it. This is exciting news! The devil also knows the power of prayer and tries to stop it. No wonder Christians find it hard to pray. No wonder we get easily distracted or feel that our feeble prayers won’t make a difference. I constantly fight against these things.

5. We are to be prudent. Trusting in God’s protection doesn’t rule out common sense. No one walks in front of a moving truck—or shouldn’t. We should do everything we can to protect ourselves and our families. Proverbs says “The prudent man sees danger and hides himself; but the simple go on, and suffer for it.” Looking back, we feel we should have gone home after the first robbery.

Where was God when I needed him? I confess my theology hasn’t given me all the answers neatly wrapped up in a box and tied with a bow. Actually, not even the most brilliant theologians can. However, there is one thing I know now more than ever before: if God permits something bad to happen to us, he will walk through it with us, even if we don’t sense his presence at the time. Moses was called to go up the smoking mountain, lit up by occasional lightning, causing the Israelites to fear and tremble for their lives. And as the people watched from afar, “Moses entered into the deep darkness where God was.” Yes, God is light, but he is also in the dark moments of our lives. It’s his promise and he cannot lie. To this truth I cling:

I will never leave you nor forsake you.
--God

JUST SO YOU WON'T FORGET!

For weeks now I've been singing a little tune my granddaughter, Julia, loves to sing: " Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me," to coax that recluse to come out of hiding! It hasn't worked...until today. In late afternoon, Mr. Sun poured shafts of sunbeams right into my office with such strength that I actually closed the curtains! Then, just to tease me, he put on a splendid show, and I grabbed my camera as he was slipping away to bed. He tipped his hat and I was sure I heard him say, " Just so you won't forget!"

FLOWERS AND GREEN THINGS

I just had to get out of our apartment this afternoon. My brain needed fresh air and I needed to escape from the TV's constant reporting on the levels of radiation in Japan and the war in Libya. I grabbed my camera and started walking. My eyes feasted on the intricate design of the flowers, their delicateness and colors, at God's ingenuity in coming up with sooooo many varieties. And as I walked I felt my soul being restored, like David in the Bible expressed it. And I wept. I was overcome by the beauty of it all and weeping seemed like an appropriate expression of my awe of God. I sat on a log in a neighboring park and looked up at the very tops of the trees that covered me like a gigantic roof. Here are some of the beauties I photographed this afternoon:

Pumpkin Muffins become Squash Loaf

Pumpkin Muffins

From Cheryl Townsley's Lifestyle for Health cookbook

1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened

3/4 cup syrup, maple

1 lrg. egg

1 cup pumpkin, canned

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2 cups flour, spelt

1 tbs. arrowroot powder

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt, sea

1 tbs. pumpkin pie spice

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1/2 cup raisins, seedless, unpacked--or dates

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Directions:

1. Mix applesauce and syrup together. Beat in egg and pumpkin until smooth.

2. Stir together all dry ingredients, add to pumpkin mixture.

3. Stir in dried fruit and nuts. Makes one 9" x 5" loaf or one dozen muffins.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes for muffins, or until done. Bake loaf about 45 to 60 minutes, or until done.

Yields: 12 muffins

HOWEVER...I made many substitutions. For instance,

I can't buy applesauce, so I boiled two apples and beat in blender. It made a little more than 1/2 c. I didn't have maple syrup, so I substituted the 3/4 C. syrup for 1 cup white sugar. Ahem, I can't buy canned pumpkin here, so I boiled a butternut squash, blended it and substituted the squash for the same amount of pumpkin. Spelt flour? I've never seen it in my life. So, I substituted the 2 cups of spelt for 1 cup white flour + 1 cup wheat flour (healthier!!). The next item is arrowroot powder, an ingredient I also don't have. I substituted cornstarch in the same measurement. I used regular table salt for sea salt, but when I got to the pumpkin pie spice I hit a snag. The internet came to my rescue and gave me the recipe, which is:

for 1 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice use: 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. ginger, 1/8 tsp. ground cloves, and 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg. I couldn't have been happier that I had all those ingredients. The last substitution I made was to substitute the pecans for Brazil nuts--hey, that sounds better anyway because I live in Brazil. See how easy it is to cook in a foreign country???

I opted to made one loaf instead of the muffins. And presto (NOT!) it was done and I'm going to get my second slice right now and eat it with "real" butter. Bon appétit!!!

WHEN WEAK IS STRONG

After 35 years away from the college scene, I found myself back in a classroom in a creative writing class. Based on my brother-in-law’s experience as a college professor, I assumed I was as good a writer as the rest of them—or hopefully even better. I looked around at my classmates that first day wondering who they were, and as days turned into weeks I soon found out. Although Alisha’s piercing stood out in her round face and I smelled the smoke of a smoldering fire in her breast whenever she talked about her parents, her writing talents had won her a place as a contributor to the school’s prestigious newspaper. Quiet, red-headed Betsy was an art major who wrote great poetry about her photography. Even David the dental student was an excellent writer. Observing these talented students, my hopes of being their equal melted as quickly as butter in a hot iron skillet, and I decided it was wiser to follow that old adage to keep my mouth shut and be thought smart than to open it and remove all doubt. Happily, during that first month of class my scheme worked and I was able to maintain my facade.

But that soon came to an end. One day the teacher called the entire class out to the lawn to contemplate a water fountain gracing the campus landscape. Delicate arcs of water sprayed from nozzles into a shallow pool and our assignment was to write inspired lines of poetry while looking at the fountain. I stared blankly at the water, trying to think up a clever simile that would impress my colleagues. I imagined the arc of water as prancing horses, maybe a lady’s full, white petticoat, or even a contortionist. Our time was up all too quickly and the teacher called us to sit in a large circle on the grass so each student could read his or her poem to the class. I felt a twinge of panic.

The first person read his four lines using beautiful prose. Strange, I thought, his lines didn’t rhyme. The second student’s didn’t either, nor the third. Like the first rays of light stealing over the mountains, it slowly dawned on me that these students were on a different level than I was. I’d always thought poetry needed to rhyme, but now my rhyming lines appeared somehow amateur and childish. I felt embarrassed just thinking about how they would sound to their “professional” ears. Betsy compared the fountain to a baker scattering flour, and I gasped inwardly when Becky said the fountain was like an orgasm. As my turn got closer and closer, I saw the destruction of my facade approaching like an army tank advancing in slow motion toward its victim. Blood rushed to my face; my heart beat accelerated. Somehow, a fifty-six-year-old missionary seemed terribly out of place in the midst of these incredibly creative young people. Then it was my turn. Slowly, I opened my mouth, and each syllable uttered into that warm, autumn air sounded more like a death rattle than beautiful poetry. Like Adam and Eve after the fall, I had been found out. I felt naked and ashamed.

Throughout that semester, I struggled to write to the best of my ability, but the teacher handed out complements like a miser giving money to a beggar, and I concluded I was just “average”—not the stunning writer I tried to be.
Feelings of inadequacy…who wants them? How many times have I stood before a crowd of people to sing or speak feeling inept and unqualified and praying desperately for God’s help? How many times have you felt inadequate in roles you were asked to fill? Is it just human nature or are these feelings of inadequacy another manifestation of prideful competition? Is there something to learn in these situations? In the past I may not have recognized it, but I am beginning to understand that God is somehow, in these agonizing moments, using these feelings of inadequacy to drive me to lean on his strength.

I’m thankful for the Apostle Paul. After giving a recital of his accomplishments to the Corinthian church, he tells them he was given a thorn in the flesh to keep him from getting proud. (Does that make a light go on?) After pleading with God to take it away and being refused, he proclaims, “Now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me…I am quite content with my weaknesses…for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9b-10).
God used a thorn in his flesh to give Paul a crystal clear picture of himself: a weak, inadequate Paul, who by insisting on doing things in his own strength, could actually block the divine power from flowing through him. Paul needed a “reality check”—just like we do.

Is God the one sending us these feelings of inadequacy then? Not necessarily. Not all feelings of inadequacy are part of a divine scheme. A general feeling of inferiority is not God-sent and is often a result of wrong thinking patterns. False humility, refusal to recognize personal abilities or putting oneself down to look humble, is also of human origin.

We also need to differentiate between unpreparedness and inadequacy. If we are asked to teach a class, but don’t prepare, we may feel inadequate and rightly so, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s about responding to what we feel God is asking us to do—be it in our secular job or in a ministry at church: teach a class, preach, sing, counsel, lead a group of people or pray— and in spite of preparing for the task, we still feel inadequate.

Moses is a great example. In his early phase, he oozed self-confidence as he strutted around the country in his royal garb, a well-prepared man who had probably graduated from the best schools, who certainly lived in the best house in Egypt and had the richest, adopted father in the country. Moses was “The Man of the Year!” He was so self-confident that one day as he was visiting the Hebrew slaves, he felt justified in killing an Egyptian man!

Fast-forward forty years. God and Moses are having a conversation and God has just finished asking Moses to return to Egypt to deliver his people. And Moses says, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? How can you expect me to lead the Israelites out of Egypt? Look, they won’t believe me!” Moses incites God’s anger when he says, “I’m just not a good speaker. I never have been, and I’m not now…Please, send someone else.”

Does that sound like the same Moses?

I don’t think anyone likes to feel weak or inadequate. Self-confidence and capability suit us so much better. Yet, God couldn’t use Moses until his unhealthy, self-confidence was broken and he saw himself as he truly was: weak and inadequate for the divinely-appointed task.

So, in living the quotidian life, how should I change my perspective from excessive self-confidence to a healthy dependence on God, without falling into an unhealthy inferiority complex or passivity trap? Strange as it may seem, the word ‘clay’ may be the clue to our finding the answer.

1. Clay is commonplace. It is probably one of the oldest and cheapest materials accessible to man since creation. The Bible compares us to clay through the prophet Isaiah: “We are the clay; you [Lord] are the potter…” (Isa. 64:8) We’re pretty common stuff which may be why we might feel at times like the cartoon character, “Where’s Waldo?” Do I matter in the midst of more than six billion people? The answer is an emphatic YES. If we didn’t matter to God, He would never have died to redeem us.

2. Clay is useful. From Bible times until the present, clay continues to be used even though modern technology has presented us with plastics, stainless steel and other superior materials. Around the world clay pots continue to hold gallons of water and clay bricks shelter a large chunk of humanity. God desires to use us and will use us if we own up to our ‘clayness’—our weakness. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find this place of weakness more comfortable than I thought it would be. It’s so much better to be my real self than posing as Miss Self-Sufficiency.
3. Clay is fragil. Even a child can smash a clay jar or break a single brick, yet when supported by cement and steel its fragility can be transformed into strong, high-rise apartment buildings. We, too, can be useful though fragil. We don’t have to put on the bold face—the big talk. God wants us to be ourselves. Many times I've prayed that prayer, “Lord, help me. I don’t think I can do this.” And then he comes and fills my clay vessel with his own presence and power. I have a hunch this is the true meaning of humility, not, as it is sometimes portrayed, as a poor or illiterate person. Humility is taking off the mask and the costume and allowing others to see the “real” me.

4. The value of a clay vessel is in what it contains. Would you rather have a clay pot filled with a thousand gold coins or a silver pot filled with dirt? Paul exults in our weakness, “But this precious treasure—this light and power that now shine within us—is held in perishable containers, that is, in our weak bodies.” (2 Cor. 4: 7) When we are willing to be seen as clay—inadequate, incapable or even less intelligent than we feel we are—yielded to the potter’s will—the light and power of Christ can shine forth… “So everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own.” (There’s no room for pride to grow here.)

Jesus is always the perfect example. “Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing” (Phil.2.6-7a). The word ‘nothing’ rings of inadequacy and weakness, doesn’t it? Jesus chose to minister from a place of weakness, not strength. He, the omniscient, all-knowing God, chose to depend solely on the revelation of the Holy Spirit when he walked this earth. He, the omnipotent, all-powerful God, chose to become the helpless prisoner of Roman soldiers. He, the omnipresent, ever-present God, chose to constrain himself to the limitations of the human body.

God calls us to be ‘nothing’ as well. He calls us to minister from our weakness, not our strength, from a place of dependence, not independence. He is calling us to be nothing—so he can be everything.

This, then, is how we should respond when God asks us to minister: Instead of fleeing situations that make us feel weak and inadequate, we embrace them as opportunities to trust God to use us in spite of ourselves. Then, as if on cue, the miracle begins.

God Delights to Answer Prayer

As I stood facing the congregation, a middle-aged blond lady caught my attention. She sat to my right, and while I played the keyboard for the worship time, I thought I heard a quiet, operatic voice rise above the chorus of worshipers singing together. I scanned the crowd and yes, that voice did seem to come from the blond lady. She looked happy, I thought, but why did she sing out like that? Then it was our turn to sing. Pat grabbed the guitar and we started singing songs our band had recorded years ago. Pat noticed the blond lady singing along. Humm. At the close of the meeting, I stood off to the side to sell our cds. The blond lady approached me bubbling with enthusiasm, "When I was a teenager, our youth group used to sing all your songs..." She hugged me excitedly. "We had your cassette tapes and I still have your records! But, I've never been able to trace you down. Three months ago, I opened my window, looked out and prayed, 'God, I don't know where this band is or how to find them, but I would like to locate them.' Tonight, not only did I get to meet the band, but also the composer of the songs!"

Isn't God just somethin'else??

P.S. BOO-HOO

I hung the third panel of sheers late Saturday night, pleased as punch with the results--the flowing, filmy voil that graced the windows had the effect I'd dreamed of. (I love to bury my face in the middle of all that fluff because it reminds me of a bridal dress.) The next morning I walked into the living room to admire my work in the light of day, but to my horror, the third panel of sheers was shorter than the others...and not just a teensy, weensy bit shorter, but a full inch and a half shorter!!! All this after I'd carefully measured, pinned and ironed the hem and taken the trouble to hang the drapes before sewing to compare lengths.

I don't know what the moral of this story is, but if you do, please let me in on the secret.

HELPFUL HINTS ON MAKING CURTAINS

I'm in the process of making curtains for the livingroom and altering old curtains for new windows. I've acquired a lot of savvy from my experience and would love to share it with you.

1) Take a refresher course in math before buying material. That way you won't have to look "dumb" when the clerk asks you how many yards you want.
2 It is smart to listen to the clerk who has way more experience in figuring out yardage than you do.
3) Listen to your husband (if he happens to be with you).
4) If you didn't listen to your husband OR the clerk and have to return to the store for MORE material, try to find a different clerk to wait on you. (Hint: less embarrassing)
5) Avoid sticking yourself with straight pins. It creates pain, and at times, blood.
6) If you notice blood stains on the material, follow this advice I heard somewhere: spit on the blood. Well, they didn't exactly say spit, but the idea is the same...use your saliva which has enzymes that begin to act on the blood stain before you make yourself get up and wash it out.
7) If you can actually make these curtains look nice, Congratulations, you have achieved your goal.

JUST LIKE A MAGICIAN'S HAT

We sang in church Sunday night, and it had been many months since Pat had played his Ovation. He took it to church and pulled it out of its very dilapidated case. When he reached inside the guitar to check out the battery, just like a magician's hat, out came this: Bella's pajama top and a decoration from the Christmas tree!!! Hmmmm, who was the magician who put those items inside the guitar?????

prairie rose: SLEEPLESS IN CURITIBA

prairie rose: SLEEPLESS IN CURITIBA

SLEEPLESS IN CURITIBA

It happens every now and then--nights when sleep won't come. This time, instead of tossing and turning in bed, I penned these lines while looking out my window at the lights of Curitiba.

COLORING THE NIGHT

Stop lights blink in reds and greens
Cars rush on in flight
Taxis orange cruise empty streets
No passengers in sight.

Billboards flash in purple hues
Neon paints the sky
Planes take wing in black of night
Wave red and white goodbyes.

Lamp posts don bright yellow caps
Silently they stare
Towers dot the sky with red
While stores show off their wares.

And here I sit in sleepless grays
Coloring the night
From fourteen floors above the street
Anxious for dawn's soft white.

prairie rose: Anything will do

prairie rose: Anything will do

Anything will do

We are getting packed up. Yup! A company is putting all our stuff into boxes and today before I knew it, all the plates had been packed away. I had grabbed two knives and two forks and two mugs. Alas! my hubby came up with the genial idea to use the cutting boards as plates.

SEVEN IN A ROW

Seven little socks

hanging in a row

Whose can they be?

Maybe I know.

The long ones are sister's
The striped must be her brother's
The little bitsy baby ones
Are surely not her mother's!

Looking lost without their mates
hanging in a row
Seven little socks
with no place to go.

I'll hold them to my heart
Pretend I hear a giggle
as I tickle tiny toes
until they're in a pickle!

Then quietly I'll hang them up
seven in a row
and pray God bless the little feet
wherever they may go.

MICHAEL'S PROPHETIC WORDS

I'm going through boxes and boxes of stuff because we are moving. Today I came across a writing assignment Michael had in the 2nd grade. His teacher asked him to write about "If I Were a Missionary"and answer the following questions:

1) What kind of work would you do?

2) Where would you live?

3) What kind of food would you eat?

4) What would be some dangers you would face?

5) How would you or what would you tell people about Jesus?

Here is what Michael wrote:

"If I were a missionary I would be a singer. I would like to live in the United States of America.

I would eat taco salad every day. I love taco salad.

One of the dangers I would face would be hitting my car in an accident. I would tell people that Jesus died to save them, and that they could be saved."

Marley Molly

The spirit of Marley is in our boxer Molly. The list of things she has wrecked keeps growing. Yesterday she started to chew off the paint by the garage that had bubbled up from the humidity. She escaped twice from her collar--(it is now hanging on a nail on the door)--and we don't know how she did it. She whacked off both of our decorative bamboo clumps that grow--er, used to grow by the side of the house and she helped herself to a huge, blue, beautiful hydrangea flower.

During the Christmas season I had cookies cooling on the kitchen counter. I left for an instant and the front door was open. When I came back, a whole row of cookies was missing. Another day she went for a third of a fruit cake. To spite her, I gave her the old, stale gingerbread men that no one wanted to eat!

I scold, wag my finger in her face, threaten her with spankings, and she hangs her head and looks up at me with those liquid brown eyes--then goes right back to being naughty! What can I do?

Twice she turned on the hose and after hours of water washing into the neighbor's yard, they came to tell us something we didn't know!!!!!!! Molly! Molly! Molly! What are we going to do with you?

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

William Shakespeare said it but I'm loathe to find the "sweet" in it. After spending nine months with Michael, Cari, Bella and Caleb--and almost 5 months with Lilani-- parting is far from sweet. I think words like soul-wrenching, tearing apart, yank, rip and wrest are more appropriate. It just plain hurts. Someone tried to console me by saying that wouldn't I prefer they were far away, but happy with life than living close to me and unhappy? Yes, of course, but that doesn't stop the bleeding.

Walking past their now silent, empty rooms brings tears to my eyes, a wish that I could lift the curtain of time and bring them back. When I open my kitchen cupboards and see Caleb's batman glass and Bella's princess glass still sitting quietly in their spots, it feels like they are still close--maybe gone for the day, but surely returning and I can pretend they haven't gone at all.

Any vestige of their presence brings comfort: a lost hair bow, a Dora the Explorer card from a memory game, a baby crib, a mismatched sock, a size 3 camouflage T-shirt, a lonely baby wipe left in the little blue elephant container, toothbrushes and Crest whitening toothpaste from the States, a Canadian coin, an abandoned pair of torn bermuda jeans size 34. And those are just the tangibles. There are also the intangibles: memories of two blonde heads bobbing up the stairs in the morning for breakfast, of Cari on the computer, Michael coming home from work with a cold bottle of coke (!), willing helpers whenever Grandma made tocolate cookies, Caleb's "Tama, tama", Bella's art work, Lilani's smiles, Cari's encouraging words, hearing Michael say, "Want to watch a movie with us?" giggles and hugs, snuggling in Grandma and Grandpa's bed, enjoying Cari's "eye for a good picture", proud of Michael's musical ability....and so much more.

God has blessed each of us with a memory bank--a place to come back to where we can pick up each memory one by one, hold it close for a moment, then return it to its place. The best part is that He has also given us a special person, the Holy Spirit, who understands us perfectly, who consoles and comforts us until the wounds are healed.

ERIC TURNS 6

Happy Birthday to Eric on his 6th!!! I love you! His was a waterworld theme that his Mommy knows how to create very well. I ate too much!!

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, REESHA!

Our firstborn, our sunshine! For her birthday celebration we ate pancit, a Philippino dish. Reesha brought the recipe back from the Philippians years ago where she spent her internship. Happy, happy birthday, dear daughter! Love you mucho!

A POCKETFUL OF GOLD

In February 1974 Pat and I and our smiley, two-year-old daughter, Reesha, boarded a plane in Minneapolis, USA in the dead of winter and landed in Brazil in the middle of summer. It was magical. We left our bulky winter coats behind at the airport with family and just a few hours later walked off the plane in Brazil as light as sheered sheep.

We gradually settled down into a very different lifestyle in the polluted industrial region of Coronel Fabriciano, MG. One fine day in May, working in the Bethany seminary kitchen helping with the noon meal, director Larry Darby stopped by for a few minutes to chit chat. All of a sudden he looked at me and said, “Your eyes look yellow.” Taken aback, I looked in the mirror for myself and sure enough, the whites of my eyes were as yellow as cat eyes in the dark. I was sure the doctor's diagnosis would be hepatitis. It was.

Language study stopped, a gate was put in the doorway to our bedroom so our little Reesha couldn't come in, poor thing, and my sister, Cathie, also a missionary in Brazil, came to see me and set up a sterilization system to wash my dishes so others wouldn't get what I had. I spent my days lying on my back looking at the blue walls of our bedroom, memorizing every defect in the plaster, wishing someone would remember to turn off the compressor that shook the ground (and my brain) below my window as it pumped well water into the cistern several times a day. And I thought.

I had lots to think about, mainly about our financial security which appeared quite fragile. We were a faith mission that believed we should work with our hands and trust God for the rest. That was the sticky part, the trusting. We lived rent-free and ate together in a common dining room with students and staff, and in those days adult staff received a small monthly stipend of US$25 each with a stunning addition of US$5 per child. I guess I wasn't a very good Christian because I worried about the money, or more precisely, the lack of it. The day I discovered my yellow eyes, Pat went to the director for money to pay for a doctor’s appointment and was told there was none. The till was empty. That´s definitely unsettling when you're new to the company. It's not that I was afraid of living simply. I came from a simple family and well remember the day we had only potatoes to eat for lunch. But now I was in a foreign country, I'd only known the director for three months, I didn't understand how this place was run, I couldn't speak Portuguese very well and understood even less. I was scared.

For two months I was bedridden and that's a long time to think. One day a small parcel arrived from the USA. It was an audio cassette tape from the junior class at Bethany Bible School in Minneapolis. They felt God directed them to record songs from the Scriptures and I immediately fell in love with the simple words and melodies. My favorite was Psalm 19 because the chorus of the song was about money, even though the principal theme of the psalm was the Word of God. I sang along with the tape over and over:

More to be desired are they [God’s words] than gold
Yeah, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey
And the honeycomb.

And as I sang the Holy Spirit whispered to my soul, “My Word is trustworthy; you can trust me…but will you? When there's no money in the till at the seminary, you can trust me; now will you?”

At the end of two months the doctor gave his okay for me to get out of bed. My body was whole, but more importantly, my soul had been healed. I wasn't worried about the money question anymore. Singing the Word over and over again had worked its wonder in my soul, slowly eroding my doubts like water wearing down the hardest rock. Like the psalmist, I had tasted the Word and found it was indeed sweeter than honey, but more importantly, I now knew, deep down in my heart, that trusting in His Word brought more security than a pocketful of 24-karat gold.