Per our usual tradition, my family put up our Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. (By the way, this isn’t a discussion about when you should or should not decorate for Christmas. You do you, merry-makers! Deck your halls and trim your trees until you can festoon no more! And if that helps you beat the blahs of a pandemic holiday season, keep them up until August!) We dragged the boxes from the basement and began unloading their contents. Wreaths on the windows and doors. Tabletop decorations and a nativity set for the bookshelf. We set up one (pre-lit) tree in the sunroom with colorful lights, kid-made ornaments, and a Santa tree skirt. I always ask our kids to hang the ornaments on this one. It’s fun to listen to them reminisce and laugh at the clay snowmen, pipe cleaner candy canes, and photos framed by popsicle sticks, dotted haphazardly with red and green pom-pom balls. And we always have to tell the story about the time when one of my daughters took a bite out of a dog bone ornament because she thought it was a Scooby snack cookie. (Either way…why? Rule Number 754 Of Things I Didn’t Think I’d Have To Say Aloud: Don’t eat, lick, or even nimble anything that is hanging on the Christmas tree.) The other tree went up by the living room window. This one is artificial, too. (This also isn’t a discussion about live vs. artificial Christmas trees. Why is there so much to argue about when it comes to this stuff, anyway?!) We’ve had this tree for going on twenty years. It loses tons of (fake) needles each time we set it up, so it will eventually be bald. Until that happens, it falls to me to wrap the branches in white lights before the ornaments go on. This is not my favorite part of the process. It involves a lot of lights, standing on stools, going around in circles, and sweating. As I was plugging in each strand of lights to check that they still work before putting them on the branches, I congratulated my January 2020 self for taking the time to wrap the lights around pieces of cardboard to keep them separated and organized. It would be oh-so easy to just dump the lights in a jumbled heap in the bin, pop the lid on top, and forget about it. But how I would regret it! If you stop and think about it, there are plenty of things most of us are able to do because we’re infused with hopefulness. Unconsciously, we make assumptions about where we’ll be tomorrow and what we’ll be doing. When I wrapped all those lights around cardboard rectangles the day after New Year’s Day, I was saying, “I have a hope that I will need these when another Christmas season rolls around.” During bleak times, remaining hopeful can sometimes feel foolish or naïve. Should we even make plans anymore? What’s the point when so much is uncertain? It reminds me of what James, Jesus’ brother, said when he scolds people for focusing too much on their own plots and proposals. “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’” Good grief, James! This forces me to ask myself if I should even wrap those lights at all! But then I search the Scripture for whispers of a living hope—hope for resurrection, hope for justice, hope that things will be made right. James goes on to say we shouldn’t boast about our own schemes, but spirit-filled hope is something we should shout about from the rooftops. Romans 5 gives us permission to boast, because we are bragging on a glorious and generous God who has given us a reason to be hopeful. “And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Praise God for the hope He continually gives us. Whether it’s in the form of another day or a newborn baby, looking forward is an essential quality. But focusing on the future doesn’t mean you don’t act in the present or even ignore the past. The miracle of hope is that it can involve all three. C.S. Lewis said, “Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”

I’m not trying to brag, but I have a massive art collection. It’s true. All of them are one-of-a-kind originals. Sure, they were made in elementary art class by my four children, but I’m telling you…it’s a priceless collection. I display this priceless art in our basement. There’s a wall of just fish and bird paintings. There are self-portraits and cityscapes and jungle animals and a variety of foods, including a slice of pizza. Lots of good stuff. Bright and colorful scenes which make me happy when I’m heading to the laundry room. For more than a decade since I first had elementary-aged kids, I’ve bought very cheap frames for my collection. To keep the look cohesive (because, you know, I’m pretty fancy), I pop the glass out and spray paint all of the wooden frames the same dark red color. (If only da Vinci had thought of this, that Mona Lisa thing might’ve been more popular. It’s a shame, really.) The artwork that comes home from school is rarely the same size as the standard frames I buy from Hobby Lobby. Their chalky tempera masterpieces are usually on these oversized sheets of stiff, white paper which are larger than the 11×14 frames I purchase. But, as a patron of the arts, I am not daunted in accomplishing my task. My solution is to lay the glass on the artwork and trace around the sides with a pencil. Then I trim the excess so that it will lay perfectly inside the frame. At first, it seemed heartless to alter my sweet babies’ drawings, cutting off pieces of suns in the upper corner or blue waves at the bottom. But the paintings don’t suffer from the lack of these edges. The artists (my kids) were mostly focused on the center of the page—the big, fat pumpkin sitting in the sunny pumpkin patch or the sails on the sailboat which is tossing on choppy, blue waves. So taking out an inch here and there is no big deal. There have been times when I’ve voluntarily taken on the task of trimming the edges of my activities, duties and even the concentration of my thoughts, but first I’ve had to determine what has priority. Some things fall right in the center, such as my kids and my husband, while others hover on the periphery. It can be difficult to determine which is which, especially if it feels like people are counting on me to follow through, and I worry I might disappoint them. Throughout my adult years, I haven’t always been skilled in carrying out these croppings and cuttings, then we were handed a global pandemic, and tons of activities were trimmed away for us, whether we liked it or not. I hesitate to say that it has been good, because I know so many have experienced huge heartache in the last 8 or 9 months and I would never want to trivialize that very real sorrow, but I will say that in spite of the stress and uncertainty, last summer held countless blessings—simple and beautiful ones—for our family. It was the last months before our daughters left for college for the first time and I enjoyed how slow time felt. Now that those initial changes have become routine, I have had to be more intentional as I try to regain that often illusive feeling of contentment. So I go to the Scriptures and read Philippians 4:8, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Here I’m given instructions how to trim the excess. It’s not easy to block out the noise and distraction, but in verse 9 we’re given the prize: “Then the God of peace will be with you.” God-given peace, the priceless treasure we all desire to collect.

This pandemic may be called many things—scary, inconvenient, ill-timed, unprecedented. As a mom to two graduating daughters and two soccer-playing sons, the main word is aggravating. “Why now?” they ask. “Why did this stupid virus have to interrupt my final year of high school/senior prom/graduation party/mission trip/soccer season/out-of-town tournament/church camp?” They’re pretty good kids, so after spending some time lamenting the loss of these events and milestones, they sit a little taller with a newly developed perspective. They’ve come to realize trips and parties, while fun, aren’t vital to our survival as a species. It’s an invaluable lesson about how the planets don’t revolve around them and their whims. And it’s a lesson we’re all learning every day as we strive to find better ways to appreciate our blessings and look out for each other like it’s our full time job. I had one of those epiphanies last week when we attended the funeral of my husband’s 94-year old grandfather. We traveled a couple of hours to a funeral home where we knew the attendance would be low. The visitation was family-only, so 15 of us sat in the chapel and visited with mask-muffled voices, as Grandpa lay in his casket at the front of the room. Eventually it was time for the graveside service, so we drove down the road to the cemetery where Grandma is also buried. On the drive, I told my husband how sad it was that more people weren’t there to pay their respects to this amazing World War 2 veteran. A radio operator on transport ships in the Pacific, he was so proud of the fact that he was on the ship next to the USS Missouri when the Japanese foreign minister signed the peace treaty to end the war. After the war and until his death, he lived in Oak Ridge, Tennessee where he worked at the National Lab. (Grandma also worked there as a Guardette tasked with, among other things, making sure everyone had left the building in case of an evacuation. Her time there and her exposure to uranium led to her battle with breast cancer.) Grandpa traveled with bombs and parts of bombs. He was a genius at fixing things—weed-eaters, chain saws, telephones, watches. He was the one they called in to pull wire through buildings and set the locks on giant safes. These were my thoughts as we parked at the cemetery and saw car after car lined up beside us. People were standing around, mostly strangers to us who had gone to church with Grandpa, waiting for us to take our place under the canopy and sit in the folding chairs reserved for family. Then we saw the two naval officers in their dress whites, standing at attention by Grandpa’s flag-draped casket. They were facing each other, as still as statues. As one of the men crisply spun around and stepped away from the group, I noticed he was holding a bugle. At a safe distance from the crowd, he removed his face mask and began to play Taps. Those sad and lonesome notes drifted above us as we looked forward in silence, tears trickling down the sides of my face before being absorbed by my mask. When the bugler returned to the canopy, he removed the flag and worked with the other officer to meticulously fold it into a perfect triangle. Then the other officer held the folded flag in front of my father-in-law and said, “On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Navy and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.” Once the offered flag was taken, he snapped back and saluted with perfect solemnity and respect. I had started the day with an unshakeable feeling of sadness that this aggravating virus would prevent a dear man from receiving the deference and appreciation that was due him, but, in the end, I was wrong. Like so much of these last few months, the essential was revealed and lessons were learned. Each of these days which fall under the heading of PANDEMIC CONTINUES will not end in the way I would choose, (because…why should life start being perfect now, anyway?) but when things do turn around and the clouds part and we get a little sunshine where we expected thunderstorms, it’s always worth mentioning.

In 2007 Columbian artist Doris Salcedo created a temporary installation at the Tate Modern art museum in London. Her crew formed a long, dramatic crack in the concrete floor of the gallery. It started as a thin break at one end of the room that expanded and split like the widening tributaries of a river. During the months it was viewed by the public and in spite of the posted warnings about the nature of the exhibit, some visitors reported injuries due to tripping over the uneven floor where the gash went as deep as two feet. Salcedo named her interactive artwork Shibboleth, a word which calls up the uncomfortable idea of dividing, creating a clear us vs. them. To find the genesis of the word shibboleth, we have to look to the Book of Judges in the first half of the Bible. Here we see a rough man named Jephthah. Born from a prostitute and booted out of his father’s home by his half-brothers, he had made a name for himself among renegades and scoundrels who were searching for a leader just as much as they were itching for a fight. When the Ammonites came to start a war, the very people who had thrown Jephthah out of town begged him to come back home and be their leader. They needed a warrior and this coarse, haggling outcast was just the fella to do the job. Judges 11 gives us a few details about the battle and Jephthah’s foolish vow which resulted in the disgraceful and unnecessary death of his only child. Then we see Jephthah’s predicament with the tribe of Ephraim. (Historical Context: Many generations before Jephthah came on the scene, the leaders of Israel had divided the land between the 12 sons of Jacob. Joseph, Jacob’s most successful and powerful son, wanted his blessing to go to his own sons—Manasseh and Ephraim—creating two half-tribes.) Fast forward to Jephthah, the illegitimate son from Gilead and the tribe of Manasseh, now being hounded by his kinfolk, the Ephraimites, for excluding them from the battle against the Ammonites. The men from the tribe of Ephraim told Jephthah, “How dare you go fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you! We’re going to burn down your house over your head.” Jephthah wouldn’t stand by in the face of this egregious threat. His troops were told to station themselves on the shores of the Jordan River and deny any Ephraimite to cross alive. They’re told to quiz these relative relatives. When someone approached them, they would ask if they were from Ephraim. Then they were supposed to ask them to say, “Shibboleth.” They knew the Ephraimites had a particular pronunciation of this innocuous Hebrew word which meant “an ear of corn.” If they said, “Sibboleth” Jephthah’s men would murder them on the spot. Shibboleth became a password, a means to separate two people groups who should have been allies. Centuries later, the word shibboleth is a stand-in for a custom or phrase which is designed to divide and separate. Author and professor Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. used the term in a recent article where he answered his own question about the fragile state of our democracy when faced with widespread systematic racism. He said, “The answer to that question will depend, in part, on white America’s willingness to leave the shibboleths of American racism behind…” A willingness to acknowledge that some know (and can say) the correct password to gain passage across the Jordan into privilege and safety and others don’t, and then to be bothered enough by this realization to act. The gallery floor of the Tate still bears the scar of its past art exhibit, though the crack has been filled in. The symbolism of Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth begged people to look down and see the disfigured gap, if for no other reason than to avoid tripping over it or falling into it. Salcedo explained in an interview, “It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred.” So now that we see the crack, how we help others—or in some cases, stop preventing others—to cross the divide reveals our deepest character. Not because I have anything especially extraordinary to offer and in spite of being utterly flawed and downright clumsy, but if I can be one person standing on the edge of this deep, horrific gash in the ground, staring at tangled rebar and bits of bone and rock revealed by the crevice, waiting to offer a hand to those on the other side, then at least I am one.

You inhale deeply as you approach the wooden archway. A voice from the speaker above you and to your right is midway through its recording: “…so ride at your own risk. Only you know your limitations.” You pull the corners of your mouth into a forced smile at the child who stands beside you. She has asked you to join her on this journey. It would be pure cowardice to retreat. Together, you weave through the maze of metal fencing to find your place in line. The bars are painted a dark red. Shallow scratches and deep gashes in the paint show the original steely gray underneath. You rest your palms against the horizontal bars at your waist, but pull them back as you consider all of the sticky, sweaty hands that have blazed this trail before you, pioneers in tank tops and athletic shorts. You glance at your child who stands shoulder-to-shoulder with you. You notice that you are eye level now. When did she get so tall or when did you shrink? She leans her back against the bar behind her, looking carefree and relaxed. A clattering sound rumbles over your heads, followed seconds later by deafening screams, and then both sounds are gone in a rush of air. You shuffle forward a few feet. Conversations circle around you. Small children whine about the wait. Mothers remind them to be patient. A girl braids her friend’s hair into a long, tight rope. You turn away when you see a young couple embrace—too much affection in such a confined space. Finally, you see the loading area. You watch people—brave souls just like you—as they board the cars. You fight the urge to salute them and their bravery. The affectionate couple from before is seated and both of them look nervous. “I’m a little scared,” your child says quietly. You fake enthusiasm and confidence. You tell her, “Ah, come on. It’ll be fun. I promise.” The cars return with their windswept occupants, smiling broadly. You wonder if their smiles are from joy or relief or both. Either way, you are encouraged that they returned without injury. Your child slides into the car and you follow her. You attempt to steady trembling hands as you buckle the thick seat belt and pull down the padded bar. The bored, teen-aged park employee walks past each pair and tugs at their restraints. Internally, you question the extent of the training that allows him to operate this giant death trap. It’s too late to turn back now. The cars rumble away slowly, teasing you with their nonchalant speed. You know this is a trick. You know this ride is designed to rattle your fillings and challenge your bladder. The car climbs the steep hill with a repetition of clicks. At the top of the hill, you have only the briefest moment to assess the situation. In that moment, you calculate the risks and search your memory bank for any relevant news stories of crashes and negligent park staff. Then, you fall. The rapid descent lifts you ever so slightly from your seat. Your heart races and your stomach drops. You chance a look at your child next to you—her eyes shut tight and her hands thrown into the air. She smiles. You scream. You find that you are grabbing her arm, involuntarily. The fear you felt before for your safety has been transferred to fear for hers. When the ride is jerked to an abrupt end, you step out of the car and onto the platform with shaky legs. “That was fun!” your child says, as she bounces up and down with the release of pent-up energy. “Wanna do it again?” You manage a weak smile in response. The endless recording continues as you exit the archway: “Only you know your limitations.” You chuckle at the thought of fully knowing something as fluid as your limitations. You follow your child away from the ride, watching her long legs manage a smooth, assertive stride and you wonder where this confidence comes from. Suddenly, you wake up. It was all a dream. You’re not at an amusement park, but safely in your bed. As you examine the feelings of riding those ups and downs with your child, you realize that it’s May and your child is graduating from high school. Eighteen years of being her mom, and then this. Though there are giant question marks looming overhead as big as thunderclouds which seemed to be raining down their periods in the form of hail stones, you know there are sunny days ahead, just as you know that you are the proud parent of a Class of 2020 graduate.

It took nearly four years to bring our adopted son home from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During that time, I was constantly searching for information about his home country. Did the Congolese President mention adoption at his latest news conference? What were those protests about and was anyone hurt? What illness was affecting the people there? I got in a habit of turning on the radio every time I walked in the kitchen. I wanted the news running in the background so that I could catch any bits of information that I might have missed online. My ear was tuned to pick up certain words: Congo, Kabila, Ebola. Now that our son has been home for four years, I realized that I still turn on the radio while I’m in the kitchen. It’s routine, like flipping on the light switch. But listening to the news I hear on the radio now is too much to absorb for hours at a time. While it’s important to stay informed, I can’t listen to the number of deaths and job losses all day long. It’s not right to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the misery of others, but it’s not healthy to swallow that darkness in such big gulp-fulls. I decided I would allow myself thirty minutes of news radio, and then switch to music for the rest of the day. I would limit social media as much as possible, choosing instead to sit in the sunshine (when available…Thank you, Jesus!) and watch the squirrels and birds in my yard. I was searching for balance. Another way I’ve calmed my anxiety has been through crocheting, picking up my crochet hook and yarn during this time of social distancing. For years, I’ve enjoyed making afghans for friends, but it’s become a new form of therapy for me now. I decided to use the various balls of yarn from old projects to make a granny square blanket for one of my daughters who’s going away to college next year. Instead of making separate squares that would be joined together like a quilt, I chose to make one giant square that would change colors for each row. I began with red yarn in a tiny ring that grew into four little clusters, then a little larger ring of navy, followed by another ring of mustard yellow. Little by little it’s growing, but the rings can only be made one cluster at a time, and those clusters can only be made one stitch at a time. At the beginning it seemed daunting: How would this little stitch become large enough to cover a bed? How long would it take? Though the beginning rings were smaller and took less time to make, they seemed more difficult because I couldn’t see what design was forming. Now that it’s a big enough square to just cover my lap, I am encouraged. Now I see that I can complete it as long as I stick to the plan—one stitch at a time. It’s like this period of quarantine—months made from weeks, weeks made from days, days made from hours, hours made from breaths…one breath and then another and then another. Look for the balance you need to take this season one day at a time. The author of the Book of Ecclesiastes understood this kind of balance when he wrote: “There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth: a right time for birth and another for death, a right time to plant and another to reap, a right time to kill and another to heal, a right time to destroy and another to construct, a right time to cry and another to laugh…” (The Message Bible) He also reminds us about enjoying TODAY: “Each day is God’s gift. It’s all you get in exchange for the hard work of staying alive. Make the most of each one! Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it…” (The Message Bible)

It feels like everything has been turned upside-down: We’re wearing masks and gloves to the grocery store. Adults are worried about their jobs and kids are missing their friends. Our elderly loved ones are more lonely than ever, as they’ve been isolated from family and others who might unintentionally make them very sick. And people are talking about toilet paper way more than they used to. For my family, the loss of sports has been a big blow. It’s been so bad that I recently walked in the living room only to see the menfolk intensely watching a rerun of a competitive cup-stacking competition on TV. They’re especially sad that the Olympics have been postponed, so we decided to use the week of Spring Break to stage our own Olympic-type games—The Rosser Games. (Cue Olympic theme song.) There were eight of us, so we decided to divide into 4 teams with an adult and child/teen on each team. Then we became the following countries: The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Isle of Man, Greece and Argentina. Though the teams were picked at random, it was clear from the outset that the Isle of Man team was stacked with the most athletic kid and the most athletic adult. (Note: I wasn’t on that team.) Our first competition was a Backyard Obstacle Course. There was jumping and running and crawling and kicking and throwing. Next came Driveway Bowling. This consisted of 10 various plastic bottles we pulled from the recycling bin and placed at the bottom of our sloped driveway. Then, the bowler stood behind a chalked line further up the driveway and rolled a soccer ball, hoping it would curve and eventually careen into the bottles. Over the following days, my husband (the Games Commissioner) planned more games. We played Frisbee Horseshoes (where we tried to get the frisbee as close to a stake in the ground as possible with extra points awarded for hitting the stake), Foosball, Stair Golf (a cup was taped to the carpet at the bottom of the stairs and the golfer stood on the landing and attempted to putt a golf ball into the cup), Bocce Ball, and Football Toss (my son wanted to do an egg toss but I wasn’t going to waste any eggs). Our final game was Bounce Off, a game from Mattel that we have had for years but never really played much before. You sit at a table and bounce ping-pong balls into a plastic grid, trying to replicate the pattern on a card. We were surprised by how intense the competition got! If we had had sports commentators, they would’ve waxed eloquently about celebrating the unbreakable human spirit and the tragedy of defeat. It was no surprise that Isle of Man came out the victor at the end of the week. They were first in all but two events. In lieu of medals, their awards will be coming via Amazon in a few weeks—a 3’x5’ flag of their adopted country. The Rosser Games were the embodiment of one of my oft-repeated mantras during this time of quarantine: “We just have to make the best of it.” This isn’t what we wanted for our Spring Break, but it’s better than competitive moping. Maybe those imaginary sports commentators were right, maybe there is something about the unbreakable human spirit to celebrate.

When my twin daughters were newborns, they kept me moving. Seeing as how they were helpless in every way, there was always something to do for them. After a few months of being their mom, I realized something funny—they mostly alternated in their fussiness. One would be happily staring into her blurry void, a slobbery, toothless grin plastered on her face, while the other one would be screaming bloody murder. Then, a few hours later, they would change it up. Happy Baby would morph into Grouchy Baby and Angry Baby would switch to Cheerful Baby. It was as if they were professional wrestlers, tagging in and out of the ring (where I was the all-time opponent). This memory about my now almost 18-year old daughters recently surfaced to my mind as we were all quarantined together. I noticed that all of the people in our home have been alternating in their emotions. One of us would begin to feel hopeless and scared about the virus and the shortages and the cancelled events, but not all of us felt these emotions to the same extent at the same time. Slowly, the frightened one would breathe deeply and pray silently, and the wave of nauseous panic would subside. Without verbalizing it, we were tagging in and out. It was as if we were announcing, “It’s my turn to cry in the bathroom, so ya’ll hold down the fort and play a few hands of Skip Bo like we’re just on Spring Break, without a care in the world.” 1 Corinthians 12 talks about this idea of all of us coming to the table with different strengths and weaknesses, different skills and challenges. The Apostle Paul uses the analogy of a body: “Yes, the body has many parts, not just one part. If the foot says, ‘I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,’ that does not make it any less a part of the body. And what would you think if you heard an ear say, ‘I am not part of the body because I am only an ear and not an eye’? Would that make it any less a part of the body? Suppose the whole body were an eye—then how would you hear? Or if your whole body were just one big ear, how could you smell anything? But that isn’t the way God has made us. He has made many parts for our bodies and has put each part just where he wants it. What a strange thing a body would be if it had only one part! So he has made many parts, but still there is only one body. And some of the parts that seem weakest and least important are really the most necessary. If one part suffers, all parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. Now here is what I am trying to say: All of you together are the one body of Christ, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it.” (TLB) We were never meant to be alone—just a pinky toe or an earlobe, disconnected from the body—and this is more true now than ever, even if it might be more difficult to practice in our current situation. When I alternate in the peaks and valleys of the next weeks and months, I’ll need to be encouraged by the strength of the part of God’s body (or person) at the opposite side of the curve. Then, when my strength has been renewed and I can mount up with wings like eagles and run without being weary or walk without being faint, I’ll be able to be that source of encouragement to others.

For Read Across America Day, my youngest son was supposed to dress up like a book character. We had plenty of notice about this activity, so I started asking him early on what he wanted to be. “How about an elephant like the Elephant and Piggie books?” I asked. “I was an elephant last year.” “Oh…that’s right, then how about a pig?” Eye roll. We’re reading through The Littles book series (tiny people who live in the walls of the Biggs’ house) at bedtime, so I suggested he be Tom Little. “Tom looks just like a regular person, but he has a tail. That would be easy.” “Mom, I am NOT wearing a tail to school. People will make fun of me.” He was pretty adamant that he wasn’t going to dress up as any book character, claiming that he would be the ONLY ONE with a costume and EVERYONE would laugh at him and he would be SO embarrassed. The night before Read Across America Day, I tried one more time to see if he had changed his mind. There was a picture book on the floor—Jack B. Ninja, a play on the nursery rhyme “Jack Be Nimble”—so I pointed to it and said, “How about a ninja?” Once I described an all-black outfit we could easily cobble together from things in his drawers, he agreed. “But I need a mask, like in the picture,” he said. It being 8:30 on a Sunday night, I wasn’t thrilled about going out to the store, so I looked around the house for something to make a balaclava-type mask. I found a pair of his older brother’s black compression shorts that were too small and ripped at the waistband. I cut it up and sewed it together like I was the birds and mice in the Cinderella movie. Ta-da! Ninja mask! The next morning, the kid who was too embarrassed to go to school dressed as a pig or a boy with a removable tail, instead wore his older brother’s underwear on his face. Life is funny, isn’t it? Wearing costumes can be fun, but it’s understandable why he was particular about who or what he would pretend to be all day long at school. It can feel inauthentic, phony. Jesus warned his followers about hiding their true selves behind masks in Luke 12. “Watch yourselves carefully so you don’t get contaminated with Pharisee yeast, Pharisee phoniness. You can’t keep your true self hidden forever; before long you’ll be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can’t whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day’s coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.” (The Message) We all put up a façade at some point, but it’s just a matter of time before our true identity will be revealed. Jesus recommended being the same person in private and in public. Don’t fake kindness and Christian values just on Sundays. Assume that those whispers will eventually spread like wildfire, so make them whispers you want heard by others. And this applies to everyone, even ninjas.

Very early on a Sunday morning on a remote Florida highway, my husband and I noticed a road sign we’d never seen close to the coast before. It was a yellow, diamond-shaped caution sign with the silhouette of a bear in the center. I was already on edge—it was hours before daybreak and the black waters of St. George Sound splashed ominously at my right as I hugged the coastline. The last thing I wanted to add to my anxiety was the threat that a giant black bear might come lumbering out into the road. (Although I guess you could argue it’s the bear you’re not looking for that you should worry about!) We had dropped off three of our four kids at a beach house with relatives so we could continue to drive further inland in the direction of the soccer fields where our older son would be playing in Jacksonville, just shy of the Atlantic. It seemed like the sun would never come up, and we fought the fatigue we felt from the 10-hour drive we had made the day before. Attack of the Swamp Bear loomed large in my exhausted imagination. There are seasons of life when you know what dangers lie ahead—the terrible twos of parenting a toddler or the unwelcome weight gain of middle age. Though these probable and assumed complications can be difficult to manage, they are steps in a natural series of events. You see them coming and expecting them sometimes makes them easier to survive. But what about those curveballs zooming in at 100 miles an hour out of the clear blue? The serious illnesses or relationship trauma? The Swamp Bears who attack before courteously putting out a warning sign first? These are the moments when I’m reminded how little I can control. I pretend that I’m driving the whole thing—making decisions, making plans, making my case for my decisions and plans. In reality, the warning signs are actually inconsequential to the final outcome. Just having the information ahead of time doesn’t exempt us from trouble and surprises. These deep thoughts were my morning ponderings as I watched the eastern sky go from black to charcoal. Clouds began to materialize as the sun lit them from its perch just below the horizon. Slowly the sky lightened to a cobalt blue and I could see more clearly. I shifted in my seat behind the wheel of our minivan, feeling a little more alert and grateful for constants, like a good, old-fashioned sunrise, that I can always count on. “Thank you,” I whispered. I silently prayed for wisdom and patience in all of the burdens I’ve been lugging around with me for the last few months. The heavy ones that are old and should’ve been forgotten long ago, and the new ones I’ve picked up in the form of worry and doubt. I asked the Lord to protect us from these dangers that I know, the ones I’m currently aware of. Then I asked Him to save me from the Swamp Bears that I’ll never see coming.

For years, I’ve been fascinated by stained glass windows. Other than the obvious reasons for their appeal—the way they add an interesting element to a room and how they change colors according to the light shining in from outside and that they have limitless possibilities for artistic expression—I also appreciate how difficult they can be to construct. There’s glass-cutting, welding and soldering, painting and sealing. There’s sharp tools and hot kilns and noxious epoxies and a material that can easily crack and break. No doubt being a stained glass artisan is a methodical and sometimes frustrating job with cut fingers and strained eyesight. None of the outside windows in my home contain stained glass, but I do have seven old, discarded stained glass windows hung across two of my kitchen walls. I collected them over the years from antique stores, some pricey and some dirt cheap. Though they don’t catch the sun’s rays, they still brighten up a boring off-white corner above our kitchen banquette. All of my collection are just for show. They have no practical purpose or function. They don’t keep out the winter cold or the summer heat. My windows are just there to look pretty. But the stained glass windows in ancient churches and cathedrals had a real purpose. Besides insulating the people inside from the weather outdoors, they were designed to tell a story. In medieval times, artists would work with church leaders to create a Poor Man’s Bible. They would explain the narrative of the Bible to a mostly illiterate population through a series of pictures. One whole window might be filled with panes depicting the story of Jesus’ birth. Then the one next to it might have pictures only relating to the book of Genesis. I can just imagine an uneducated laborer walking into one these Gothic structures and sitting down on a hard, wooden pew. He would look up in awe at the massive glass story boards surrounding him as he pieced together these epic sagas from God’s Word. I am a window, in a way. Just like those complicated and exquisite stained glass windows in medieval churches, I have the ability to tell a story, too, but my story will be more effective if it isn’t just hung on an off-white wall—decorating without educating, adorning without informing, embellishing without enlightening. The story I have to tell will be so much more powerful if I allow a bright, sunny light to pass through the colored panes. If I can deliver my testimony from the point of view that God’s light has shown through every moment of my life, it will be a compelling story, for sure.

When we remodeled our master bathroom several years ago, I decided we needed to have some kind of clock in there to let my husband and I know if we were on schedule while getting ready in the morning. I found a large clock on clearance at Hobby Lobby that would do the job, so I hung it to the left of the mirror where it could be easily seen. Since it was the right size, color and price, I didn’t really pay much attention to anything else. It wasn’t until I had it hung on the wall that I noticed why it may have been on clearance. It wasn’t that it wouldn’t operate correctly—the hands ran clockwise and the Roman numerals were in the correct order. The flaw was something more subtle. It was designed to look like a giant, old-timey pocket watch. The metal frame looked aged with a faux bronze patina. The paper face of the clock was cream with slightly darker splotches of color, suggesting this antique piece had sat in a dusty French shop for centuries. The key giveaway that it had actually been made in more recent history was the wording on the clock. Just below the XII, it reads, “Antiquité de PARIS” and just above the VI, there is a date stamp: 1987. Now, you’re never going to see me on the Antiques Roadshow, identifying myself as any kind of expert, but I’m pretty sure something made in 1987 isn’t a genuine antique. (If that’s true I need to raid my parents’ house to see if they still have any of my old Pound Puppies, Swatch watches or dresses with shoulder pads.) Though the clock doesn’t live up to its implied promises of being a valuable antique, it does keep time fairly well with the occasional battery replacement. So judging by its usefulness, it’s a good clock. In Matthew 7, Jesus warns his disciples about teachers who would weren’t what they claimed to be. He said, “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act.” (NLT) He wanted them to be on their guard for inauthenticity, knowing that it is sometimes tricky to spot a fake. In Luke 6, Jesus explains further that, “A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit…A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart. (NLT) Though He gave them this advice thousands of years ago, it still rings true today for us. We are how we act. What comes out of my mouth is a big indicator of what is in my heart. Being authentic is more than just being transparent about all our mistakes. It’s also about what comes next—actions which reinforce a life dedicated to love and truthfulness.