My Hope is Built on Nothing Less

I feel alone, apart, adrift. I thought I had an anchor but I cannot feel its tug. Does that mean it is no longer there? And so I fear, doubt, and become even more tossed to and fro by the wind and the waves. 

I cry out but Jesus does not speak the words I would choose for him. He does not speak "Peace, Be Still" to the chaos of my life, my own storm. I know he could as easily he controlled the Sea of Galilee. Why? Help!

And then he does speak. He whispers, "Peace, Be Still," not to the wind and waves but rather to the turbulence of my own heart. The roiling worries have no place despite the waves. This is my miracle, my anchor holds. 

"When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil."

(hymn info)

The Perfect Game

I love games. I grew up playing board games with my family and when we'd finally exhausted Monopoly and a dozen others we started trying to make our own board game. We've picked it up again a few Christmases over the past fifteen years, and we did again this past Christmas. It was hysterical and fun.

For the first time in our gaming history we came up with a functional game that had a beginning, a middle, and an end. It worked. But like a fifth grade creative writing project, it lacked depth. It wasn't something we ever really wanted to play again. This led my sister and I to think through more and more about what made a game great. This is a topic we're still working on and while we have some ideas, it isn't a perfect science either.

This train of thought led me into other questions of whether or not games have purpose and whether or not my delight in them is well-founded. After all, games are not terribly practical. Their main purpose is pleasure. I play them for the delight they bring in the challenge, the friendship, and the story.

There are more dots in the connection than I can explain, but I eventually rabbit trailed this into seeing this as yet another metaphor for life. Life is God's game with us, not in a malicious or spiteful way. But it is full of challenge, friendship, and story. I should see those things in life with the same kind of delight and perseverance, the same kind of sportsmanship in winning and losing, the same appreciation that I have for board games.

And it all comes back to my phrase for the year: "For the joy set before him..." and thus "For the joy set before me...".

May we all look to the joy set before us, right in front of us as well as stretched out ahead past difficult things.

Again with the Doctor Who... I know.

 “Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make any difference?” ~The Doctor

I admit that this line almost made me cry. I have spoken with so many people who break off relationships with other people at the slightest jiggle of the shopping cart. I have known people whom I knew I would disappoint at some point and they would cut me off. And they did, because that's what they do to every person who's not perfect... and well, I'm not either.

But sometimes people cut off others for reasons that seem legitimate. I won't go into those and it's not those I care about. It's this: that Jesus loved me so much that betrayal, that being his enemy, didn't make a difference in whether or not he would die for me.

Having tasted a bit of the bitter dish of betrayal, I know that's no easy hurt to swallow.

Confetti Joy

I admit it; I was surprised by the confetti. My mouth gaped open, there was a sudden intake of breath. And then I smiled. I wasn’t expecting anything fancy for a $20 concert, even though it was one of my favorite bands. I loved it all. I loved the concert. I loved the confetti.

After my initial happiness at the fluttering colors, I began to think of how foolish it was to like bits of paper flying around in the air and how someone was just going to have to clean it up later. But then I realized how stuffy and cynical I sounded. Why can’t I just take joy in the beauty I’ve been given? Something that was meant to give me pleasure, did. And here I am complaining about it in my head.

The next day I was cycling through my thoughts about confetti and staring out my back window. It was a frivolous blizzard of yellow leaves. They were stunning in the sunshine.  And then it hit me. God also likes confetti; after all, he invented it! And we, all superior and grown up, instead of taking a child’s joy in them complain about how much work it is to rake them up.

So many things in life are like this. I spent a good bit of time convincing one of the 1st grade boys in our after-school tutoring program that participating in the activities was going to take some hard work but that it would be worth it in the end. He would learn and he would probably have some fun too. Take joy in the work.

It’s the same thing I tell people when I try to get them involved in volunteering and working with refugees and other internationals. It’s not easy. It takes a significant amount of work to become friends with a person who barely speaks your language. When cultural differences cause confusion, you can feel lost and idiotic. But it’s all worth it. The joy, the friendships, seeing God’s stories in the lives of people very different from you, seeing God work in your own life through it all, all these things are incredibly beautiful and valuable.

Sure, you may have to start with a bit of death like the trees do, a bit of choosing the hard thing over the temporary thrills of the moment, deciding to turn yellow at the edges. You may have to become open and bare and vulnerable to the elements and break free of the shell of your comfortable living. You might have to say “Hello” to a Muslim, or a Mexican, or your next-door neighbor. And then they may want something from you: your attention, your love, your service. Sacrifice your perceived safety on the altar of God’s call to the world. And then joy in what God adds to your life, the confetti colors of his creation, the overabundance of leaves and laughter.

Join me in this Isaiah path to joy.

...if you pour yourself out for the hungry
   and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
    and your gloom be as the noonday.
And the Lord will guide you continually
    and satisfy your desire in scorched places
    and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
    like a spring of water,
    whose waters do not fail.

Heavy

A few months ago, a kind woman gave me a couple of hand weights to share with some of the refugee women I work with. Some had mentioned an interest in exercising. I tossed them onto the floor of my back seat in a plastic bag. And there they sat.

In a few weeks they had escaped their plastic bag and would roll and rustle every time I turned a corner. They were taunting me with my inadequacy on many levels. First, I should have gotten around to giving them away. Second, maybe I should be using them myself!

And then it hit me. How many times in life do I let people give me their expectations, the weights of their standards, the burdens of their dreams? Just because someone else wants to live until they are 120, doesn't mean I have to strive for that. Just because someone wants to run a marathon doesn't mean I have to start training. Just because someone takes a certain vitamin and calls it their miracle drug, doesn't mean I have to spend half my income on it too.  Everyone has their own obsession.

I've got my own. When the woman in class mentions her traumatic memories of finding body parts of a relative, and it triggers the memories and fears of another lady who cries for her family in ISIS controlled areas, there is little to do but listen.

I've realized I can't care about everything; I don't have it in me. Some weights belong to other people and not to me.  But even more than that, I'm not the one who is supposed to carry any of these weights. Jesus bears my burdens.

Preaching to Myself

I'm always going around telling people to do things they are afraid of. For example, "Talk to the lady with a headscarf. She's not scary. She could use a friend and probably someone to speak English with her." Or, "You could teach in a foreign country. It's actually really fun!" Or even sometimes things that are a little more mundane, "You can step out of your shell and talk about something deep, something that hits below the surface conversation about the weather."

And all this is pretty easy for me. I'm not the type that is easily frightened by the unfamiliar. I moved to Iraq when my country still had an active military presence there. People called me brave, but it didn't feel like bravery because it wasn't scary to me in the first place. So sometimes I'm not very compassionate towards people who are afraid of things. I see their fear and how it keeps them from doing amazing things and I just don't understand.  Get a grip, people!

That is, until I run into the wall that is my own fear. When my own insecurities and inadequacies are on the surface of something new, suddenly fear is a totally understandable and reasonable response! I mean, that wall is made of brick! How could I possible get over or go through THAT!

For me, that meant being filmed... like... on camera. I think I had to pee every fifteen minutes that morning and visibly shaking as the time drew near. The first take had me looking like a frozen deer in the headlights. I had to preach the same message to myself that I so often give to others. "It's good to do something that scares you. It's worth it to step out of your comfort zone. This will help you grow and help others hear something new."

Thankfully, I was blessed to work with people who are my friends, who have great grace for me, and know me well enough to help me relax and laugh a little. In all, it was a good experience, even a little fun. I was running on adrenaline for the rest of the afternoon but adrenaline can make you very productive, so that was awesome.

So the message I preach to my friends here, I also preach to myself, because it is true. Our lives are better when we step into something uncomfortable, when we try new things, when we step out to do the things that God calls us to do, rejecting our irrational fears and instead walking in faith in the God who made us.

Celebrity Teammates

I've really enjoyed watching the World Cup this year. I got into living overseas, four years ago, and it didn't wear off in the last two years in the US. The game between the US and Belgium was so much fun to watch, despite the outcome. The most of the press in the US has been on the fantastic goalie, Tim Howard, and rightfully so. He's amazing. His saves were fantastic. At one point the announcers said that he had not once dove in the wrong direction. All that, and he's good looking!

The aftermath of it, at least for him, is an incredible jump in celebrity status. He's trending on FB. He spoke to the president, along with the team captain Clint Dempsey. You know you've gotten into the big league if the president calls you AND films himself while doing it. I mean, wow.

The articles have been, as a whole, very positive. Even the captain of the Belgian team has respect for the play of Tim Howard. But there's something about all of this that I don't understand. Suddenly, there are also articles about how Tim Howard's a Christian and it's all shocking and wow, I bet you didn't know. What's up with that?

I'm all for supporting your team. As a Christian myself, I know that other Christians are my family. But the sudden interest in his faith seems, disingenuous. It's like we only care if he's a Christian once he's famous. Either that, or there's the idea that because he's a Christian and famous that I'll get some fame because I'm a Christian? I don't know, really. I know that's not what people were thinking when they wrote the articles, but I can't help but feel that its false boasting or something.

Maybe I'm wrong to be a little annoyed by these things. I mean, I'm glad he's going to Heaven and all; I'm happy when my family succeeds. But are we happy to know about believers who aren't succeeding on the earthly stage? Are we willing to identify ourselves with them as easily? Do we Christians just as excitedly claim them as part of our "team" as well? Or does our embarrassment over our less flashy relatives really mean we disown them and send them into exile.

I know there's a balance. Modesty is required for the unpresentable parts of the body of Christ. But somehow I don't think earthly success and celebrity is really the measure of a man.

Safety First!

With all the violence in Iraq now, more and more people comment on how they are glad I’m not there anymore, they are glad that I am safe.

Even before this, people have commented on how they are glad I survived, glad I am safe now, glad I’m in a safer place. It makes me angry. I know they mean well, but it isn’t better to have survived. It isn’t always better to be safe. Men in solitary confinement are safe.

Our modern American society and even especially the church culture has bought into the evolutionary lie that survival is the highest good. We have adopted a Hunger Games mentality where survival determines who is fittest and best. Caution is the new moral standard. Anything remotely perceived as reckless is no longer brave, but labeled as foolish. We have found a way to justify our cowardice.

But in the world of Scripture, survival has very little value in and of itself. St. Paul says that to die is gain. Living is mostly characterized by suffering. We are told to live a life that daily anticipates and accepts death, why else would we carry a cross? If safety is your greatest concern, carrying crosses is not your thing.

Survival can be good, but it isn’t an ultimate value. In fact, survival without much more becomes meaningless. Why does suicide even exist?

We are to live urgently, fully, patiently, courageously, carrying a cross with us wherever God has called us to be whether it looks safe or not. After all, our idea of safety is only an illusion. If God calls you to our glorious eternal home he can do so just as easily with a car crash in a small American town as he can with a bomb or gun in the Middle East.

We have fashioned a God of our own making. Our obsession with safety first has created an idol that causes many to cease living at all, to hide away talents and callings in the houses of our lives like agoraphobic old women afraid to step out into the sunshine. The truest death is not found in the dangerous places, but rather found in the dusty forgotten corners where piles of dead bones lay having only wasted away, never having been used or seen or spent.

What to do when the end of all things is near...

1 Peter 4:7-11

The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

The end of all things is near. This statement is assumed, stated as fact. This is the premise on which he bases the statement after saying "therefore".  Some think this refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, others the increasing persecution, whatever the case, the instructions are clear. Be alert and sober minded so that you can pray. I am reminded of the disciples falling asleep in the garden. For them the end of all things was near. They were asked to keep watch, be alert, and pray. But they could not. So often I turn to things that numb my mind instead of staying alert. This is foolishness and disobedience. 

Above all, love. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love covers. God's love has covered our sin, not in some willful blindness but with grace and his blood. Love invites people over and serves them (hospitality) without grumbling, without complaining about how you have to clean your house, without bringing up grudges. Love serves dinner to and washes the feet of the man who will betray you. 

It logically follows that we are to use our gifts to serve others. I've been reading Richard Fosters "Celebration of Discipline" again. I'm not sure I've ever really finished it; I find myself re-reading sections over and over. Service is one of them. God has been good to me. I have many gifts. And I know the consequences of pouring them out on others. Sometimes they are received with joy; other times they are thrown back in your face. But you cannot fill yourself up again either way. But the truth of it is here. These things we have are gifts. I didn't give them to myself, they are not an outpouring of myself. Rather they are what I've been given by God, his outpouring into me is my pleasure and joy to be able to pour out to others. In imitation of Christ who didn't hoard his great wealth in himself in heaven, but came to earth to pour himself out, to pull out a towel and wash his disciples' feet, even those of Judas. Thus our words, our service, is God's. The strength to continue in it is his also. And in the end, the glory is his as well. It is my prayer that both I and you will be filled with God's strength to do his will, to use his gifts as faithful stewards in the service of others. 

What did Jesus do when the end of all things was near? He was alert and praying. He was loving even his betrayer. He was hospitable and serving.  

"Voluntary servitude is a great joy." -Richard Foster

Personal Property

Americans can get very worked up about personal property. Those who have it don't want it taken away; those without want to get it from others but then not have it taken away from themselves. The government tries to holler over like an exhausted teacher from the other side of the classroom and solve things by making things "fair". And as noble as that all seems they fail miserably.

So one kid complains wanting the teacher to do more and the other kid less. The real problem is that the kids are fighting over something that never really belonged to either of them nor does it belong to the teacher.  Thus are Americans wrapped up in their ownership of the Earth instead of realizing that the Earth is the Lord's and we are merely stewards. Sure, there are economics involved, practical considerations governing earthly recognition of ownership. But how would we as people behave differently if we looked at material goods as a blessing instead of a right?

A Father's Care

Said the Robin to the Sparrow,

"I should really like to know

Why these anxious human beings

Rush about and worry so."

Said the Sparrow to the Robin,

"Friend, I think that it must be

That they have no heavenly Father

Such as cares for you and me."

~Elizabeth Cheney "Overheard in an Orchard"

How often do we live as if we had no heavenly father? Those of us who have been adopted into the family of God know that we have a Father who loves and cares more than we could ever know. Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them (Matthew 6:26).

Another Monday

Some days it takes every last ounce of strength to get out of bed.

Glowing sunshine, mist rising off fields, and the crisp beginnings of fall can alleviate some of the deadness of heart. The smell of a hazelnut candle and the patterns of sunshine on the pale carpet can reach in to touch the life that is buried inside somewhere. But quiet cold rooms and redoing work that was done once before can be a fierce wind on that little spark of motivation. 

What's the point of even trying? 

And I realize that that is just another one of the lies.

Questions plague me about where to go to church, which jobs to do, who to make friends with, what to even do with my afternoons and evenings... and I am pushed and pulled in a hundred directions and feel like I wish the world would shut up and hold still...

just        for       a        moment.

And I raise my arms like Moses did, but while the time moves on 

I am left reaching for God. 

Infancy

Infants and small children take naps. Now, I take naps.

I was once told that it was the amount of new world to process that caused the young to sleep more (although still not nearly enough, according to some parents I know). It is while we sleep that our brains organize and filter all the information that has passed into our busy minds through our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin. That is my excuse.

While living in the world is not new to me, everything is new. This world is not the world I have lived in for the past several years. This world is not even the world that I have lived in ever. Sure, I've seen and felt grass before, but less often than dust and concrete. Sure, breathing is an old habit, but breathing wet air, humid dampness, and it is not a vacation breathing but every day real life breathing. And every day I take one more step into the living of a full life here and now.

I take pleasure in the freshness of it, approaching life like a five year old child, seeing things as if they are new. Even the old seems new and I wonder if now in this world I could learn to clap and cheer for the rising of the sun.  I will take pleasure in the time when I finally become comfortable with this world too, though. There is a joy in each stage that differs from other joys like the joy that comes from playing volleyball on a sunny beach is different from the joy of sitting next to a wood fire reading a book during a snowstorm.

So I learn and adjust and nap.

The Ball and the Cross

Having been inspired by a dear friend to read better books, I began two this week. One, I've had in my Kindle for weeks now. I love real books and pages and holding paper, but this is one book I'm happy to have digitally. It is "Bonhoeffer: Paster, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" by Eric Metaxas. Have you seen this book? It's huge! I wouldn't ever be inspired to take it with me anywhere because of its size. But the Kindle didn't get any bigger when it was downloaded!

The other book I began is "The Ball and the Cross" by G.K. Chesterton. This one thrilled me in the first chapter because it started to explain something I've been thinking about for over four months now.  

The character named Lucifer claims, "...the cross is the conflict of two hostile lines, of irreconcilable direction. That silent thing up there is essentially a collision, a crash, a struggle in stone. ... The very shape of it is a contradiction in terms."

Then Michael responds, "But we like  contradictions in terms. Man is a contradiction in terms; he is a beast whose superiority to other beasts consists in having fallen That cross is, as you say, an eternal collision; so am I. That is a struggle in stone. Every form of life is a struggle in flesh."

The cross as contradiction itself has long been on my mind. This, however, is part of it's glory. It is the glory of a God who redeems the fallen and makes it whole and beautiful. When the horrible is intersected by the beautiful we then have a cross. And in many ways, this is the Christianity I believe in.

Unwrapping His Promises

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. --Colossians 1:17 ESV

There were some days in the last few months where I was consciously aware of how my very existence would cease without God's continuing presence. He was literally holding all things together, especially me. I don't mean this in the way that I was being emotionally held together or that the pieces of my circumstances were being held together (although those things were held) but that I was more physically being held together.

This is hard to explain. It seemed that without God in those very moments I would die. I wasn't contemplating suicide; I was on the verge of having all of the molecules of my body fly apart of their own accord. I could feel it. Without God actively holding me together I would cease to breathe, to live, to exist.  

The interesting thing was that in those moments while I didn't actually mind the idea of dying, I did mind flying apart. I did mind ceasing to exist. Perhaps this is why so many people who don't believe in an afterlife still fear death. Which is more frightening? Heaven, hell, or just stopping?

So I would pray, and I knew in those moments God held me together. I could feel his pull the way we feel gravity when we jump up in the air. By feeling myself about to fly apart I could also feel the opposing force holding me together. And Jesus won. I'm still here. Jesus will continue to win, because he holds things together. 

Reading Good Books

I've noticed that my reading habits have sunk lately. I was talking to one of my friends about books the other day and I saw how the books I was reading had sunk to... well... junior high levels. Now, I enjoy a good kids book and have no problem reading them, obviously. But you have to admit that "Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief" is not what you call the pinnacle of literary expression. When that's the only kind of thing I read, I know I've chosen the path of the easy. If everything I do is easy, then I am most likely not doing things that I should be, right?

Recently I had a conversation with a young Muslim friend about Ramadan. He had wished his friends an "easy fasting".  On further questioning it became apparent that fasting was not meant to be easy. It wasn't meant to be torture either, but to test faith and to experience what the poor do it is necessary that it be difficult, that there be a challenge to it. I was then asked why I was asking hard questions. The answer for both of these is that the best things in life are usually hard. We often achieve and learn most through the things that take some effort, not by the things that are easy.

So, I decided I need to read some better books, some hard books. Have any suggestions?

 

824. Good conversations about hard things being good
825. Microwave smores
826. Recuperating
827. Military men who have seen too much so we don't have to
828. Handel's Messiah--He carried our sorrows
829. Avocados
830. Fresh raspberries
831. Peaches
832. Long Bible times
833. The possibilities of dreams
834. Curel Daily Moisture Lotion
835. New striped skirt
836. Torrential rain shadows
837. Sun-breaks that glitter the wet ground
839. Communion Songs
840. Talking with a friend on a bad day
841. People who have airline tickets
842. Washing machine in the house
843. Cozy darkness in the Nuart
844. Raspberry cheesecake

Images

         She pulled out two large pieces of white poster board and a couple of black and blue permanent markers. Laying them on the polished tile floor, she knelt next to them. In precise large print and simple vocabulary she outlined each rule and the corresponding consequences. The squeak of the markers echoed off of the bare walls in the room. Using a hammer and small silver tacks she put the posters up on the wall. She readjusted them several times to make them straight.  Finally, standing back, she surveyed her work.

          Walking she ran her hand along the plastered concrete wall until her fingers caught on some chips out of the paint near the door. She walked over to a shoulder bag on the floor and pulled out an A4 sheet of pale pink paper. She wrote a cheerful little rhyme  about books on it before taping it to the wall over the damaged paint and plaster. Pacing through the room again she checked and alphabetized the six books on a small shelf in the corner, lining up the spines in a row on the dented wood.

          Her eyes scanned the room marking each item in its place. Twenty-two desks stood at attention in neat rows. The clear taped name tags on the top of each desk gleamed in the sunlight.

           

          Then turning around, she sorted the dry erase markers in the metal tray below the white board. Picking up a green one she wrote, "Miss Hansen." Stopping, she erased the words and wrote, "Welcome!" She paused again and erased the exclamation point. Then she added, "to the fifth grade!" She capped the marker, picked up a red one, and added a flower in the corner of the board. Capping that marker too she put it back in the tray and lined up the markers again.

            

           Sighing, she picked up her bag and cell phone. Stepping through the doorway she glanced back into the room. She shut the door carefully behind her and silently strode down the hallway.

Outside One Evening

The light slants sideways, dripping down the dark brown bark slowly as the voice full of words hums on and on. A tall ivy clothed tree stump glitters green against the gold of the setting sun. And twisting between the slender white poplar trunks are curls and wisps of smoke, rising from the mouths of mellow young men. A white circle of it floats, expanding and dissipating in the cooling air. She holds her phone sideways, her thumbs tracing across its screen at intervals. He absentmindedly fidgets with his pipe and the paper in his lap. Another hurriedly takes notes writing down things as if a life depended on it. And I wonder which of us is missing out on the most.

Fear

Recently I've been working through my fears. There are many of them. I know that God does not give us a spirit of fear... so I fight it. But there are so many and from so many directions that sometimes I feel so lost in it all.

You see, I'm afraid of not fitting in. The transition back to the U.S. stirs up this ugly fear that has to do with what people think of me and what I think of them. I'm also afraid of fitting in. I don't want to be like everyone else. Iraq has changed me and I don't want to lose that. But then I'm also afraid of pretending to fit in even when I don't. The combination of not wanting to fit in and wanting to belong makes me horribly likely to try to look like I fit in while all the time decaying on this inside because I am different.

I am not who I was before... before ever. I am not an Idahoan... a Tennessee-an... or an Iraqi. Who am I? I'm a child of God whose true home is Heaven. Unfortunately this means that I'm an alien, an exile in a foreign land here. And that's hard.

 

Thankful List
782. Dr. Jerry's random e-mails.
783. Moments of impact that define who you are and who you become
784. Silver nail polish
785. Choices I've never had to make
786. God forgives instead of becoming bitter at my betrayal
787. Free music from Josh Garrels
788. Picture of Katie and Jonathan in the mail
789. Smooth flights
790. Heat at Loon Lake
791. A day of complete independence
792. People who understand
793. Birds in the backyard
794. Having sent off the e-mails about my house stuff
795. Coming to terms with probably never going back
796. Several applications submitted
797. Tears... everywhere
798. Forgiveness
799. People happy to see me at the Nuart
800. Being able to help and be of use to someone
801. Stomach hunger
802. Fast internet
803. The regular hum of a washing machine in the house
804. Feeling lost and unsure of where I am to go (this is a hard one)

A Day Entirely in the Imperative

Blink. Again. Spread your arms and yawn. Slide out of your bed, arch your back, and creep catlike to the bathroom. Now wake up. Wake up for real. See the world, not just as  you've always thought of it in the morning of a new day but as it really is. Pay attention to the details in the grooved bark of a tree or the spots on a butterfly's wings or the white foam on the tip of the ocean waves. Choose today to become truly aware as the story unfolds and plots crash together in front of your toast and orange juice.

Walk out into the sunshine or clouds of the day clothed with peace. Open the car doors and drive away grateful to God that it runs and moves and doesn't explode when you turn the key in the ignition. Don't rage at the crazy driving man who doesn't stop at the stop sign and don't swear at the woman who can't figure out where she's going. Give thanks for your parking spot, near or far.

Enter your workplace, glad for a profession, a way to provide for yourself, a place to learn new things, a way to serve like Jesus did. Communicate open heartedly and reach out to the people around you. Love them because you are commanded to. Love them because God does. Love them because red blood has been shed.

Breathe. Pray. Admit your empty inadequacy and your hollow weakness. Suck in another breath and fill your lungs with air. Be filled with the breath of life, the Spirit of all grace. Be thankful for that air and that grace. But turn your heart to be thankful not only in the pleasant graces but also in the severe mercies, the endings in things as well as the beginnings. Feel the pain of the losses and grief but rejoice. Rejoice in the trials, troubles, and sorrow. Seek Christ's grace, Christ's goodness, Christ's joy. Again, be thankful.

Work hard. Glorify God in what you do. And at the end of the day return home and value that you have an address to put on forms and a pillow to rest your head upon. Be a blessing to the people in your home, not a curse. Smile. Say hello and goodbye, please and thank you.

When you eat, consider how death gives life when the body of the dead is consumed by the living. Remember the sacred things and how whenever we eat of bread or drink of cup we proclaim something. Proclaim death purposefully, resurrection gladly, and Jesus' return with sure hope. Do not eat or drink in vain, but with community, gratitude, humility, and joy.

And at the end, after the sun has set, lay yourself down, weary from fully living a whole day. Rest and pray and commune with the God who filled each moment with life and joy more than any one of us could manage to grasp in those moments. Then sleep well and peacefully preparing yourself for the next day's gifts to be revealed.