Something to Ponder

I was visiting some of my favorites websites last night when I became interested in a court case involving a particularly heinous crime committed in my hometown of Knoxville. One website led to another (sounds like I need some sort of internet AA and sadly enough, those organizations DO exist) and I found myself reading a transcript of the detective's interview with one of the defendants in the case. Apparently the transcript was released into public record somehow. Background: In January 2007, a young couple was carjacked, then kidnapped and taken to a home where unspeakable things were done to them repeatedly before they were finally murdered. One defendant was found guilty just yesterday and it hasn't yet been determined whether or not he will get the death penalty. The transcript I read was of an interview with his older brother, who owns the house where the young couple was taken after they were kidnapped. For simplicity's sake, let's call them Brother A and Brother B. And I probably need to say that this is all "alleged" until proven in a court of law.

According to the transcript, Brother A has a thriving drug sales business going on from his home. The detective is a little (a lot!) annoyed with Brother A for hiding from the police when they were looking for him after the first body was found, and Brother A says he knew he would "go down" for drug charges based on all the paraphrenalia in his house and wanted to lawyer up before he turned himself into the police. Oops. Brother B had been living in Kentucky but got into trouble with his usual crowd up there and came to visit Brother A for a while until the fuss died down. Brother A had been all over Brother B to "bring in some money" because A was tired of paying B's way all the time. Brother B went out and robbed a store but evidently that wasn't enough to stop the nagging, so he went out one day with a friend and came home with the couple's SUV and the couple tied up in the backseat. Brother A takes one look at the scene, knows (according to what he says in the transcript) that the couple cannot be allowed to live because they aren't "wearing hoods" and have seen too many faces, and tells Brother B how stupid he is. Brother B starts marching the young girl he has kidnapped up to Brother A's front door, passing Brother A on his way out (Brother A has stated he wants no part of this and is leaving). That young girl looks up at Brother A, makes eye contact and says, "I don't want to die." And Brother A leaves the premises, knowing full well what would ultimately happen to her.

Now, I realize that I was raised in a household with two loving parents and a wonderful extended family. We were poor. There are no two ways around it. I'm talking dirt poor. If you could see pictures of the house I grew up in you would be shocked. And yet if we needed money, holding up a store was not our first option. I'm sure many would say I'm naive or protected (and I'm sure they're right) but HOW does someone's life get to this point? HOW could that man walk past that girl, knowing she was doomed, and say NOTHING? He could have saved that girl's life, not to mention the horror she was about to endure before she died. Why didn't he? All it would have taken from him was a word, or even a phone call to 911. I guess what I'm saying is how did Brother A get to the point in his life that another human life meant nothing to him? I just don't understand. Are we as humans really such animals that we could walk right past someone when we KNOW they are destined to die and do nothing about it? Are we all about self-preservation?

And yet.... if you exchange the physical death for spiritual death, we do it every single day. How many people do we walk by every day who are dying inside? There are so many people out there who need the hope they can only find in Christ, and that's the mission of LifeSong. We KNOW what's going to happen to these people unless someone tells them about Jesus yet we have every excuse in the book to keep our mouths shut and mind our own business.

Even in the church we ignore those other believers who are hurting unless it's shoved right under our noses, and even then we often avoid it. Pain is messy. Who wants to get tangled up in someone else's problems? But we were created for relationship, first with God and then with each other. God calls us to love Him first and then to love our neighbor. It's hard to love other people, isn't it? Sometimes I think it would be so much easier if they were just more like me. :-) At least it would be more predictable, or for me it would anyway. So this is a reminder to me to keep my spiritual eyes and ears open for the pain around me.

Sometimes it's really hard to see the pain of others if they're trying to cover it up. I like to say I'm an open book, but there are many things I never share with anyone. I detest feeling pitiful and pathetic, and somewhere inside me there's some shame for not being able to take care of things myself. I've always been independent (some might say controlling - and they'd be right!) and that has led to pride. It's a challenge I wrestle with daily, and letting someone see my struggles is a huge deal for me. There's a wonderful worship song that goes like this: "Won't you let me be your servant? Let me be as Christ to you. Pray that I might have the grace to let you be my servant too." That song reminds me that when I let down my guard and allow others to help me, we're all blessed for it. Those walls I hide behind have been built with years upon years of suspicion, rejection and ridicule, but every time I peek out and find myself accepted, another section of the wall comes tumbling down.

Don't be afraid of someone else's pain or problems. God doesn't (always) call us to take on someone else to raise, but I think He does expect us to react with compassion and not contempt when we are confronted with a neighbor in need.

I don't know how this blog post ties together. This wasn't the way I expected it to go, but somehow here we are. Didn't mean to preach....

The Great Flood of '09

Wednesday morning I woke up when the alarm went off, hit the snooze button and said a half-hearted prayer in preparation for the first day of our church's called fast. As I lay in my bed I could hear a trickle of water and my sleep-addled mind thought it must be raining. But the longer I heard it, the more I realized that it was INSIDE the house. I got up and sprinted down the hall to find it raining in my kitchen! Water was literally pouring from the light fixtures. The toilet in the bathroom upstairs developed a leak in the little tube that goes from the floor into the back of the toilet. I guess it should be some comfort that at least it was clean water. Imagine the alternative - ewwww! Jon turned off the water then he and James set about minimizing the damage while I got the girls ready for school because oh yeah - this is the first week of school! Calls were made and very soon a nice guy named Charlie came and set up about a thousand (OK, ten) extremely loud (and appropriately named "Gale Force") fans in the worst hit areas, and believe me there were plenty of those. The bathroom itself was under about an inch of water, and it leaked into Karis and Quinn's bedroom and started down the upstairs hall. Downstairs the kitchen floor was wet but manageable, although the water leaked into the carpet in the dining room and hallway. The kitchen ceiling however... well, I'm just happy it didn't cave in.


Mopping up the floor with pool towels. They were the first ones we could lay our hands on and even though it's a mess, it's pretty to look at and that should count for something, right?

My naked concrete slab under the carpet after Jon and James wisely took out the wet padding. It was wet almost to the stairs. This is also what the floors look like in Karis' and Quinn's bedrooms. The carpet is peeled up halfway across the room and into the closets, and all the furniture and toys are piled up in the other half.

It was actually raining out through my light fixtures! Not. Supposed. To. Happen.

Then later I noticed a ripple in the white trim at the top of my dining room walls. Yep - water damage under the paint. I felt a little bit cheated when I found out that what looked like molding at the top of my dining room walls was actually painted onto the sheetrock.


Amy and Missi thought it would be funny if we took pictures of ourselves with the Gale Force fans blowing our hair back, like in a photo shoot. It's nearly as much fun as they make it look in magazines. In real life it's hard to keep your eyes open with that wind blowing into your face. And after a while my hair wanted to stay in that position. They've never mentioned those little tidbits in Vogue magazine, now have they?


Here's one of my little blue friends. He's pointed straight to the ceiling in an attempt to dry it out and keep the nasty mold away. I'm getting so used to these guys that I'm starting to give them names and talk to them. This is Papa Smurf, because he was here first. Every time I turn around I'm running into another one and I'm starting to think they're multiplying, like rabbits or wire clothes hangers. No kidding, I think we have about 10 of them right now.

Karis looks much cuter than I did with the windblown look.



Hiding behind this big guy is another little blue guy. We have the blowers and the suckers, and this big metal one is a sucker (dehumidifier). All of them are loud, though.


These two look like they're talking. Wonder what they're saying?
Big metal guy: Hey, what's a cute little thing like you doing in a place like this?
Little blue guy (or girl, in this case - must be Smurfette): What do you say we blow this joint?
Then then if they're anything like the rest of us, they'll both yell "What did you say? I can't hear you over all this fan noise!"
OK, so it was lame...at least I still have my sense of humor, warped though it is (kind of like my kitchen ceiling).



In an attempt to escape the constant noise, we are all holing up in the bonus room. Today we watched Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D. That tent behind Karis is also her bed last night and tonight, and however long it takes to have her room put back together.

I am not surprised by the timing of this little adventure. I know by now that whenever you are doing something for God, the enemy will come in and try to get you off track. Wednesday was the very first day of our churchwide fast and it would have been sooooo easy to get distracted with all the mess and phone calls and inconvenience. Somehow though (God's grace, I'm sure) I managed to find the time to sit down and read my Bible and pray. And it could have been much, much worse. My laptop didn't even get wet and no one got hurt. I figure if that's the worse thing that happened to me all day, I'm doing allright. Maybe I'll make that my new motto.

I am reminded of the old joke about the king who ordered a ring and told the jeweler to inscribe it with a sentiment that would fit any occasion, good or bad, but he could use only four words. The ones he chose: "This too shall pass". This is a blip on the screen of my life and it will be over soon.

Something Else I've Learned

A friend of mine went home to be with Jesus just the other day. I have conflicting feelings about it, as I think most Believers do. On the one hand I'm going to miss his smiling face but on the other, he's in Heaven with Christ right now. How could I wish him back here? Wouldn't that be selfish of me? I should be happy for him, right? But how can I be happy that he's gone? Isn't that callous?

Scott was in our LifeGroup although he wasn't able to be here much because he was busy fighting cancer. The very first time he came to LifeGroup he actually had his chemo pack with him and was attached to it! He had an incredible spirit and grace about him. He made it very clear that he was ready to meet Jesus whenever God decided to take him home, but in the meantime he was determined to fight the cancer with all he had. He was passionate about his beliefs and fiercely independent. In fact, he told us the very first night we were all together that he did not want his disease to become the group's focus. He didn't want anyone feeling sorry for him either. So we asked him how he was doing occasionally and we called to check on him when he was not able to be with us.

And now I'm feeling torn about that. It's easy for me to say that Scott did not want our hovering and that he prized his independence. He did. I mean, this is a man who went through his first chemo treatment completely alone! Who does that? We asked about taking him food and other things we could do to minister to him but he was very good at keeping us at arm's length. He had children but was not particularly close to them. Maybe he was just used to being alone. I'd like to think that we respected his wishes by not forcing ourselves on him, but maybe we should have. Would it have been more loving (or Christian) of us to just show up at his door with dinner twice a week, whether he wanted it or not? I'm not sure he would have received that gesture as love. And despite myself, I'm concerned that other people are going to think our LifeGroup dropped the ball. We knew that Scott had had his second stem cell transplant and that he had contracted a lung infection afterwards, when his immune system was most vulnerable. We knew he was in bad shape. Jon called him and Scott couldn't even speak because he was so weak. Should we have gone to the hospital? I'm not sure we would have been allowed to see him due to his weakened immunity. Would he have wanted us there? Probably not. We did pray for him as a group many times (both when he was with us and when he was not) and also in our personal prayer time, at least I did. Why do I feel like I need to defend myself?

So I guess what I've learned here is that you need to love people in a way that they perceive as love but also that you need to push the limits. Yes, I think we could have tried harder to get close to Scott and we probably didn't do as much as we could have. I don't think he felt like we didn't care. In fact, I have a feeling that the phone calls he got from our group may have been a new thing for a man who wasn't accustomed to people pursuing him and might have even been annoying sometimes. I feel bad that the pastor had to be the one to call and let us know that Scott had passed on, because the family didn't know to inform us. But I think we could have respected his limits while trying to expand them. Maybe he would have gotten used to being ministered to, over time.

In the end, I will remember Scott as a man who fought the good fight with a smile and complete surrender to his Father. He was ready to go and told us that he was not afraid to die - he just hoped it wouldn't be for a while yet. His hair had just started growing back a few weeks ago, before the last round of chemo made it fall out again. We told him it was strange to see how his appearance changed when his eyebrows came back in and he told us it was only temporary. He probably wouldn't like me saying this but he was a really sweet guy, always taking the time to pet our cats and be friendly to our girls. We'll miss you, Scott. I hope you're having a blast in Heaven with that new cancer-free body of yours, getting all your questions answered once and for all.

Things I've Learned

I like to think I'm pretty honest with myself about myself. There's no point in trying to hide my flaws anyway, because they are usually on full display without me even trying. We had a friend living with us for four months, along with her three children, and I learned some valuable lessons in that time, especially about myself. Those of you who know me probably knew all this stuff already, but humor me.

1. I'm not as patient as I thought I was. I really thought I had a handle on my impatience, but apparently not. That's what I get for relying on MY control instead of letting God be in control.

2. And the corollary to #1: I can be so hypercritical at times. You know the verse about removing the plank from your own eye before you try to remove the speck from your brother's eye? God was talking to me. Who am I that I think other people should follow my example? Why do we always think our way is best? Why (unless it's Biblical) does there have to be only one way to do things?

3. Most situations are easy enough in the short term but can get more and more complicated as time goes by. We enjoy having friends come to visit us, say, over a weekend. I can deal with most anything for 48 hours - crying babies, extra messes, feeding a crowd, being thoughtful - but once someone has been here over a week my tolerance starts to deteriorate.

4. On the other hand, I can tolerate more than I thought I could. Thanks to some good friends with excellent listening skills, I managed to keep a lid on my mean mouth for four months. Don't get me wrong, our houseguest was not particularly hard to live with. It's just that when you get used to your house being a certain way (furniture arrangements, cleanliness standards, where you put your daily "stuff") it can knock you off guard to have to change all that and my best weapon is sarcasm. It sure doesn't make people like you to get all snarky on them so I learned it's best to keep my mouth shut and get over it.

5. Despite my smart mouth, I avoid confrontation whenever possible. This one bothers me. As a bona fide Choleric, I tend toward the bold and brassy in my relationships. Why, then, was I so reluctant to speak my mind when things came up that needed addressing? Probably because I was afraid of coming across as critical. Probably also because I knew from experience how my efforts would be received, and I simply did not want to go there. And so....

6. ...I have a great future in the United Nations. I can't believe I found myself in the position of peacemaker! Trying to keep everyone happy and protect feelings was a full-time job. And I mean the kids AND the adults!

7. I don't want any more children. You might think this was a no-brainer, but up until October I still half-entertained the idea that someday I might want to adopt again. Let's just say I was keeping my options open. Jon wasn't on board (yet) but I figured he might come around if it was something God wanted for us. Having two year old twins here for four months has totally cured me. I still love babies and I am thrilled to hold them, rock them and smell their sweet baby smell, but until Dana gives me grandchildren (in about 10 years) working in the nursery will give me my baby fix.

8. I love my husband! I was divorced for about four years before Jon and I got married and I know what it's like to be the sole parent in the household. It's a lonely and difficult job, even on the best day. Despite his imperfections, Jon is one of the best things that has ever happened to me and I know without a shadow of a doubt that our marriage is a gift from God. I know I am nowhere near an easy person to live with, but somehow he muddles along and keeps loving me just the way I am. That's a man letting God love through him. It's supernatural, I tell you.

9. No matter how rotten they can be, I wouldn't trade my kids for any other kids on the planet. Again, it sounds like a no-brainer but you wouldn't believe how many times I've heard parents wish aloud that their child was like so-and-so's kid. Not me. Four months of observing someone else's children up close has convinced me that God knows exactly what he's doing when he places a child into a family. My kids need me and I need them. They're not perfect, but they're mine. I imagine God feels the same way about some of His children.

10. I am honored and humbled to be associated with the people of LifeSong Church. We have some of the most giving and loving people in South Carolina, if not the world, and they welcomed our friend in many wonderful ways.

11. And lastly.... I'd do it all over again. Despite the aggravations (on all sides, not just mine), it was SO worth it.