Taste & See...

This month, the ladies at Meditations of His Love are speaking on Psalm 34.

Today, I scribble on why we need faith to taste,

how a faithless world needs to see us satisfied in Jesus,

and about that one time Peter Pan started a food fight.

T'was the Night After Christmas

One year ago, Christmas night, my husband and littles were next door sleeping.  I was sitting at the foot of my parents' bed, massaging my mom's feet with essential oils.  Her head had hurt so badly, and for so long, it was difficult for her to tell us if anything helped.  She barely smiled and nodded when I asked if massaging was helping, so I kept on softly rubbing her feet.  I reminisced about the last time I rubbed her feet, when she was expecting my siblings and her feet were swollen from late pregnancy.  I had always enjoyed doing that for her, and she would lavish me with thanks when I did.

My brother Josh quietly entered the room, and walked to Mom's bedside.  She weakly reached out and took his hand, whispering, "I like your pants".  She had picked out the Hollister sweatpants for him, and he unwrapped them that morning when we all exchanged our gifts.  It was a wonderful Christmas morning with her, as she sweetly bore the headache, the light, the noise, so that she could be with us for our presents.

She held Josh's hand there for awhile, while I rubbed her feet.  He leaned down for a soft hug and told her he loved her, before he headed to bed.  And I wept.  Rubbing her feet there in her room, I wept fearful tears.  I didn't know why for sure at the time, but there was a peculiar dread, one I had never known, filling my chest.  Peculiar, because while the dread brought the weeping, there was a stillness--God was good and I could trust him.

I finished my massaging, said a short prayer for her, told her I loved her and went next door to my sleeping family.  Just a few hours later, the morning of December 26th, my Mama would breathe her final earthly breath.

I had always feared this.  Just a month before, I had been struggling and praying for such fear.  The Lord had been preparing and challenging my heart to trust him even in my worst fears.  I had always pictured such a tragedy being experienced with frantic anxiety, loud weeping, unbelief, fear, and pain so intense that you can't breathe.  But from the moment I got the phone call from the ER, my Dad's broken voice telling me that she was gone, there was a stillness.

When I had to hold my siblings as they wept soft tears, and I with them...a stillness.

When I had to do what I never thought I would do...
pick out my mother's burial clothes, her casket, her flowers...a stillness. 
When I saw her earthen body, which barely resembled the lovely lady I knew in her life...a stillness.

 

He, my gracious Father, was with me.  And the deeper understanding I had of the good news of his Son, the deeper was my comfort.  I urge you, friends, to know the Gospel of this Savior.  To know Him and be found in Him (Phil. 3:8). Know the love our Maker demonstrated for us in him (Rom. 5:8).  Nothing else matters, and it won't merely be nice reminders in hard times--it, and most importantly HE, will be your fortress (Ps. 18:1-2).

I know Christmas can be the most difficult season for those who are grieving lost loved ones.  And while it's been really hard as it's come closer to the milestone of her passing, I've been thankful that she passed the day after Christmas.  The same time of year that we are reminded of how death struck us with painful loss, is the same time of year that we celebrate that death will not have the last laugh.  We celebrate the advent of the incarnate Word of God.
We celebrate the Cross of Calvary.
We celebrate his Resurrection.
And we celebrate his Second Advent.
When despair tempts us in our grief, we don't have to look very far;  in lights, Christmas trees, nativities, carols and hymns, traditions, and advent sermons, and we are bombarded with reminders of Christ and the hope he gave us with His life.

 

Wednesday Words

As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Luke 11:27-28

 

"How great a privilege was it to this young virgin (Mary) to conceive in her womb and hold in her arms and suckle at her breasts, a Child who was the great and eternal and infinitely beloved Son of God, the Creator and mighty Governor of heaven and earth and the great Savior of mankind.  Well might she say upon it, "My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior."

But hearing and keeping the word of God renders a person more blessed than any of those privileges.  By 'hearing the Word of God' is either intended an external or an internal or spiritual hearing.  The woman to whom Christ directed himself in the text had been hearing the word externally.  Christ therefore here informs her that if she not only hears but keeps this word, he will render her more blessed than that privilege that she spoke of."

--Jonathan Edwards

 

 

Luke. English Standard Version. Wheaton: Crossway, 2001. Print.

 

Edwards, Jonathan. "To Be More Blessed Than Mary." Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.
Comp. Nancy Guthrie. Wheaton: Crossway, 2008. 57. Print.
Parenthesis mine.

Utmost Thankfulness

I’ve never known real physical poverty, like so many humans have experienced and are experiencing in all parts of the world.  Sometimes my gratitude seems so meager in light of that.  Even though I’ve never been wealthy either, I’ve always had plenty.  Especially plenty enough to look forward to Thanksgiving with presumption that there will be turkey, dressing, trimmings and pumpkin pie on our family’s table.

When I think about the stories on which we pin our Thanksgiving origins—the pilgrims and natives who gathered for a meal—it humbles me in my meager gratitude.  These weary people weren’t instituting a national holiday.  After a difficult year and a bitter winter, the beauty of their thankfulness was their giving it in the land of their poverty.

This made me think of a story that Jesus told in the house of Simon the Pharisee, when a disgraceful woman entered and began lavishing Jesus in humble and sincere worship:

“A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.”

And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”  Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”

And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Luke 7:41-50

The beauty in her worship was her knowing her utmost destitution being covered in Jesus’ utmost mercy.  Oh, how I want her immense gratitude.  I want the gratitude of pilgrims and natives who celebrate provision in light of their suffering and loss.

 

I may have never tasted worldly poverty, but I have, most importantly, known spiritual poverty.  I have been a slave, and accursed.  But God took on the form of my slavery and became my provision—my Lamb—and saved me.  Remembering my complete destitution (as near as the sins committed just this week), and Jesus' complete reconciliation, makes me completely and utterly thankful.

Wednesday Words

Genesis. Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Crossway, 2013. Print.