Easter Musings

[1]

Easter Musings

This week the thoughts of the Christian church have turned to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I have examined those events anew in my personal devotional time, but this morning I was drawn to the seven statements spoken by our Lord as He hung on the cross. Two of them, in particular, resonated with me.

First, was the cry of abandonment when He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) As Jesus bore the sin of a sinful humanity, the Father turned His back on His Son and the world was shrouded in darkness. Jesus faced that abandonment so that I would never have to face it.  Psalm 27:10 states, “For my father and mother have forsaken me but the Lord will take me in” (ESV).  I lived most of my life with the fear that my parents would die, and it eventually happened.  I was overwhelmed with loneliness and despair. I have written of those days in another blogpost.  The word “forsake” in Psalm 27:10 can mean “to go on before” or it can mean the outright leaving of another person (Logos Bible Software). The result is the same – a person is left alone, and that was the sense that I had.   As He hung on the cross, Jesus was praying the words of Psalm 22:1.  A careful comparison of the word forsake in Psalm 22:1 and 27:10 demonstrates that it is a derivative of the same word. There on the cross, Jesus faced abandonment by the Father so that I could claim His presence in the darkest hours of my loneliness, pain, and uncertainty. 

Second, I noted the cry of hope when in the concluding moments of His life, Jesus prayed, “Father, into Your hands I commit my Spirit” (Luke 23:46). In the Transformation Study Bible, Wiersbe comments that tradition holds that this was a prayer uttered by Jewish children at bedtime.  It would somewhat analogous to our “Now I lay me down to sleep…” I never liked the singsongy prayer, but it holds a word, of truth for the child of God. He can be trusted to take those who trust Him safely home to Heaven. In the closing moments of His life, Jesus reflected a hope and confidence in the Father as that prayer became a sigh even a cry of victory.

With Sunday morning, would come the resurrection of Christ – God’s “Amen” to the work and prayers of Christ on the cross.  His resurrection gives me hope, companionship, and assurance no matter what I face and I lift my voice in the cry of victory ….” He is risen…He is risen indeed.”

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[1] Logos Bible Software. Exegetical Guides.

Book Review: English Lessons

Lucado, Andrea.  English Lessons. New York: Waterbrook, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-60142-0.

In this memoir, Andrea Lucado records her experiences in England while attending Oxford Brookes University. She is careful to distinguish it from what she calls “Oxford”, noting the former was “more recently established” and utilized the lecture method rather than the tutorial method employed at Oxford (6). She shares how she arrived at Oxford Brookes clinging tightly to her reputation as the quintessential good Christian girl.  She had attended an evangelical church since birth, attended Christian school, and had personally professed faith in Christ. However, upon her arrival at Brookes, she found herself in a spiritual wasteland. Her description of this veritable wasteland becomes evident as she describes Christianity through the eyes of the various individuals that crossed her path. Lucado admits, with great candor, that she felt a sense of failure regarding her interactions with these seeking individuals. Yet the thing that was most changed during her year at Brookes was her view of and relationship with God.

Admittedly, I was drawn to this book because of the surname of the author. I knew that the style would end to be a bit more emotional rather than cerebral, but I can appreciate that style. I felt her fear and frustrations at various points in the book, but I was encouraged by the relationships she could form. Her reflections regarding her experiences are insightful. She notes, at the end, that the thing that changed the most for her was her perception of God. Entering the wasteland called Brookes, her faith was cut and dried, but she was worried.  In her own words, “Since birth I had spent more time inside the church than outside of it. I had also been gifted with the ability to incessantly ask questions about my faith …In high school there were a few dark and doubting months …I was trying to pray and for the first time since I had become a Christian at age nine, I felt no one was listening to me. Instead of God’s presence, I felt an emptiness and this upset me. My logical brain told me that God wasn’t there, and if he wasn’t there I didn’t have to follow his rules … I could do whatever I wanted. So, I did, sort of for a few months. It was a brief, slightly rebellious -by preacher’s daughters’ standards-time in my life. And it was brought to an abrupt halt as soon as I got caught … Now in Oxford, in a class of no Christians, and in a city and country that was located nowhere near the Bible belt, I was worried that I might lose the feeling of God’s presence again. And if I did, how would I react this time so far from home?” (11-13).  At the end of her time, she realized that God was much bigger than the faith of her childhood – than the cut and dried answers to which she had clung. As the time drew near for her to leave, she walked by the River Thames, she considered her relationship with God, stating, “…that youth and its feelings of uncertainty, constant change and insecurity are the perpetual way of the Christian life …Our faith and how we feel about God was never meant to be static. We should never assume that we have ‘arrived.’ Because the moment we do, something happens that we don’t understand, didn’t expect or don’t understand, and we are flattened by our lack of knowledge again.” (219).  On her last day in Oxford, seated with a friend in a coffee shop, she was faced with the awareness that her experiences in Oxford were carefully orchestrated by God, and she was struck with his immensity and her own minuteness. And like the overflowing River Thames, her conversations with God would continue, as she continued practicing his presence and talking to him in the milieu of life.

Lucado’s journey is not unlike my own. Although I was not a pastor’s daughter, I was the daughter of a church leader. I professed faith in Christ as a young child, but became overwhelmed by doubts in adolescence.  Unlike her, my doubts drove me to performance-based Christianity.  I, too, attended a Christian college and continued my education at a secular university. In this educational wasteland, I would try to live out the faith I professed, but failed miserably; however, God chose to draw me to Himself, and I realized that it was in Christ alone I could have the assurance I so desperately sought. As God, has grown me in faith, I have come to my own epiphany that He is bigger than my doubts. I stand and live in the presence of an immense God. I can never outrun Him, I can never out doubt Him, and I will never outgrow Him. I recommend Lucado’s book to all who seek to know God on a deeper level and are willing to take the risk of allowing Him to work in their lives in and through the wastelands of life.

Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge for reading it and posting a review on Blogging for Books, per their terms.

Thinking of Mom...Praising Jesus

Thinking of Mom…Praising Jesus

On January 5, 2001, Mom went to be with Jesus.  To be honest, I struggled with her death and God’s timing. Throughout my life, my greatest fear had been losing my mom to death. Yet as I look back, I am convinced that her life and death was a study in the sovereignty and grace of God. Mom spent most of her life until she was married in a house on the edge of the West Salem community, along with her 9 siblings and parents. She met the Lord in assurance of Salvation at age 15 at a Youth for Christ rally.   Her first health crisis came in her preschool years and left her heart, already affected by genetic dispositions weakened. No one knows or can remember the exact nature of the illness, but terms such as rheumatic fever have been tossed around.  The next mention of her heart occurred as she entered nurse’s training when a doctor scoffed at her endeavors to complete such a program.  By God’s grace she was able to complete her RN, marry, and bear a child – me, with no ill effects on her heart.

I first learned of her heart issues in my early teen years when they tried various medications to help keep her heart in rhythm. When I was 14 years old, she had her first heart catheterization; that was in 1973, and the procedure was considered somewhat dangerous, requiring a stay of several days in the hospital.  She had had atrial fib on and off. The results showed that she had definite problems which they attempted to combat through medications.  As the years progressed, she was in atrial fib more often than she was in normal sinus rhythm. Yet she continued to work as an occupational health nurse.

In 1977, Daddy was out of town on a business trip.  Mom and I were home alone, when she began to feel really sick. Brave woman that she was, she drove herself, with me along for the ride, to the doctor who immediately insisted that she be hospitalized.  As it turned out, she had numerous blood clots in the thigh area of both legs. This required extensive surgery.  Recovery was slow, but she was able to return to work.  However, she would remain on both Coumadin and Heparin (twice a day by injection) until her death.

Her next health crisis occurred in 1982 with a ruptured ovarian cyst when she almost bled to death, before they did surgery.  Recovery took longer, but she returned to work, but finally in August of 1986—she went out on disability.  A couple of months later she wound up in the hospital with undiagnosed abdominal pain.  The doctors were hesitant to do surgery since her heart was so weak.  When they finally decided to so exploratory surgery, they discovered that her appendix had ruptured –  her referred pain had been deceptive.  Before they took her into surgery, the doctor gave her a 40% chance of surviving surgery.  However, by the grace of God, she defied the odds, though she remained on ventilator for several days.

As the years progressed, she had ups and downs, other hospitalizations that were attributed to a combination of congestive heart failure and pneumonia.  In 1997, she went on oxygen 24/7.  By 2000, her heart was severely and irreparably weakened.  There were numerous trips to the office of her cardiologist.  On the last visit in January, 2001, he told her, “Miriam, you have fooled us before.  No one, but God knows how much time you have left.”

It was only a couple of days later on January 5, 2001 that God called her Home.  I had worked part of a day that day.  My pastor came to visit and pray with us.  She was in bed and planned to take a nap before she ate supper, but wanted Daddy and me to go ahead and eat.  She never woke up from that nap – her next view was that of Heaven.

If I learned anything from this, it was that God’s timing is perfect.  Any of the previous health crises could have taken her to Heaven, but God held her in the palm of His hand and used her in sickness and in health.  She was a willing servant of Christ until He called her home and remains a testimony to the fact that God is good all the time.  I still miss her, but I anticipate the day when we are reunited in Heaven.