From a dream

My name is not Joseph(a) or Daniel(le)... I'm not a psychologist. Sometimes, though, my dreams are so vivid, so real, and I remember them so well, that I wonder if I'm supposed to learn something from them.

Last week I had many dreams, more than I've been having, and two, especially, were crystal clear even days afterward. One friend says I should check what I've been eating at bedtime :-), and there are certainly some real life events being played up, but I still think there is a lesson in one of those dreams....

I was at the Fuchs' house; so were several other people. We were looking for the cats. We'd find them, and they'd disappear again, going to the other side of the house, but never there when we arrived. Poco, the dog, was overly excited, bounding around, chasing the cats, jumping on us, and never stopping or sitting or staying as he was told. Every time I'd think I - or someone else - was going to catch him, he'd slip out of our fingers and continue.

I was under a lot of stress last week, in a lot of different situations. One is a ministry of sorts the Lord has given me and I've felt so helpless and confused as to what I could or should do. People, souls, are not easily turned.

I awoke from my dream still chasing cats and calling Poco, but as I awoke I said, out loud, "I'm just NOT in control!" and I was frustrated.

That, Lord, might have been Your Spirit. That is why I was under so much stress. That is why every situation and especially ministry leaves me feeling helpless and confused. "I'm just NOT in control!"

I'm not. He is. I sing "Whom Shall I Fear" almost constantly, reminding myself that "I know Who goes before me, I know Who stands behind, the God of angel armies is always by my side." And I hold on to His promises: Phil. 1:6, Rom. 8:28, Eph. 1 - not only for me, but for every person God puts in my path.

I'm not in control.

Christmas gifts

December 14, 2008: 

It is the first Christmas I’ve ever been apart from my family. I am in Bogota, Colombia. I became the mother of a 3 year old just two months ago. I live in a cold rainy city of 8 and 1/2 million, and now, at Christmas, I am alone.

Yes, on Christmas Eve, I will join the families at the farm, but this morning - they left. After all the Christmas parties and preparations, all the end of the year programs that stressed and wore on us all, they’re gone - every person I really called “friend.” The three Americans, the three young, single, English-speaking coworkers with whom I lived and laughed, had flown out together, never to return.

My child is sick. We just spent a day having a visit with the real mother, a mother who took his Christmas present to give to his baby sister. He did not say good-bye to our friends, to “Driana,” who laughed and played with him, nor to Rrrrryon,” who fixed his toys, not even to “Tylon,” his hero and my right hand; no, my child did not say good bye, only slept and cried.

And as I watched them walk into the boarding area at the airport, I cried with him. I laughed through my tears when our English friend asked if I was going home, then added, “on a bus?” but I cried through the bus ride. I cry tonight as my little one cannot sleep unless I sit and rock him. 

I cry out to my Jesus. And tonight, to the tune of a squeaky chair in a dark room, interrupted only the roar of traffic shaking the house, He answers. Not out loud, mind you, but He answers. Tonight the little hot sweaty head on my shoulder, the little arms clutching my neck, become a hug from Jesus, who feels my every weakness (Hebrews 4:15).

---

December 18, 2013:

It started at church, this wish. Our friendly church child (we have many children, but this one is the friendly one), asked cheerily, “What do you want for Christmas, Miss Rebecca?”

I couldn’t think of one thing to tell him. It’s too complicated to explain the things I want, and they’re too hard for someone else to get for me. They’re not necessarily big or expensive, but I guess with age comes a bit of pickiness. So I said, “Nothing, really.”

I figured it out tonight. Tonight was the 9th night in a row in which I’ve had to leave an event alone. Everyone else leaves talking to their families about all the things that happened, or headed home to take care of someone who’s waiting. And I leave. Leave to contemplate the changes thrust upon me. I hate change.

I lived in Latin America for a year. In Latin America, everyone hugs and kisses for greetings and farewells, including greetings and farewells two or three times a day if one should meet and depart on multiple occasions. And I worked with Latin children who crawl up in your lap and run by to hug you at random.

I’m glad I’m a teacher of a sweet and affectionate little class, because when I don’t have bus duty, 3/4 of them walk by and give me a hug on their way out of the classroom.

I have bus duty this week.

All I want for Christmas.... is a hug.

---

December 20, 2013

I stopped by the daycare on my way home. I meant only to pick up a couple of things, but I knelt for a moment to pull a little one off a table, and as I did so, Valeria came to me. She always greets me, but today, arms around my neck, head on my shoulder, she refused to let go. 

As I stood and lifted her with me, the staff told me she’d been needing extra attention all day. Perhaps she wasn’t feeling well, but no one was sure. I had nothing pressing, so I sat and held Valeria.

Thirty minutes later, I realized - I’d had my hug from Jesus, yet again. Through a very small child, the Comforter had come (John 14:16).

--

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14.

He put on skin and moved into the neighborhood. The mystery of God becoming man is just that - a mystery - and even more so when we think that He became a baby. A child. No wonder He loved children. No wonder He said WE should be as children in coming to Him. And no wonder we cry Abba, Father, in times of need (Gal. 4:6).

I can’t quite put into words the gift I was given in these Christmas moments, but I know this. He sent me a hug through an innocent child, just as He sent His Son the Innocent Lamb in the flesh. A gift of human hands is a hug, but a gift for all human hearts is Jesus, the Jesus we know through His Word.

Weeds in the harvest

I wrote this summer about the drought, about thirsty land and thirsty hearts, about animals sold and lifestyles nearly lost, and about the famine for hearing the Word of the Lord.

Finally, it rained. Oh, did it rain. It rained through the summer, revived the grass, the green appeared, we were thankful. Then it flooded. The rivers overflowed, roads were washed out, houses were damaged, yet we were thankful. Grass grew when we thought it was too cold to grow. It headed out and those dark brown heads above the green tint were a beautiful sight. A barren land returned to the land of the living. 

I knew I needed to write about this blessing, but how? How could I put into words the sheer joy we felt, or the mixed emotions when the roofs leaked and people were hit with the cost of repairs - yet we still clapped over lakes appearing in places they’d never been? 

Fall came. Finally it cooled off to the point that the summer weeds began to die, and I noticed something. Much of the green, the beauty, had not been grass. Yes, there are still gramma heads waving out in the pasture, but between the patches, the weeds have died and left patches of bare ground, where the drought affected the turf beyond what one growing season could repair. There’s no question that life has returned, but there’s no less a question that damage was done.

--

Sundays are exciting days in my life. My church is growing. Young families are attending and they want to be part of the life of people who serve Jesus. They want to know Jesus and we are glad. We eat with them, and I study the Bible with their children. Nothing brings more joy to my day than when a 5th grade girl looks at me at the end of the story, and says, “But don’t stop! I need to know what happens!” It’s like rain! Things are growing, the harvest is coming.

But Jesus said that the harvest would not be all wheat. He warned us that weeds were growing up with those tares (Matt. 13:24-30). And nearly every day when I leave work, or I leave church, or I leave a community event, I am struck by the thorns of those weeds. A young Christian couple, married less than 3 years and already on the brink of divorce. A woman fleeing an abusive husband, trying to find a job. A young lady with no purpose beyond her live-in boyfriend who is a world away from her. What kind of past has led to this pain?

Driving home one night, I stopped to visit friends and was struck by the contrast. I’d grieved all afternoon, over sin and over situations caused simply by sin in the world. That day, I’d been so struck that I was able only to say, “That’s odd,” when a woman shared that she was glad her brother was “only drinking a lot” in response to her grandmother’s death, and when I realized that a high school girl had given herself and lost to yet another boy. 

At my friends’ home the burden was lifted as I returned to the world in which I was raised, as I saw again faith in the God I knew: yes, situations of grief cross our paths, but hope is bigger and trust in a sovereign God who lovingly commands averts much of the pain. I said “That’s odd,” again that night, but it was only in response to one child mowing the lawn after dark in November while another taught the dog to jump from freezer to washer, much to their mom’s consternation. In the world with no hope, few have the time or peace of mind to actually sit and enjoy such moments.

And I am struck again tonight. I read of the grief of lost dreams and it resonates. My life is not what I dreamed. Then I think of other news.  The chains of drugs leaving lives more trashed than the room a family abandoned. A daughter attempting suicide. A baby lost at birth.  And those around struggling to trust in a God they cannnot see and may not know. Where will they draw the strength?  Other friends come and I rejoice in the miracle of their baby, a baby loved, a baby with a future. What of my selfishness? My problems are so minute, my pain so finite in comparison. Both death and life overshadow them, for I live in the grassy patch, where God has watered the soil for many years. 

It is the difference of the wheat and the tares, of the grass and the weeds. In the world God created, in His perfect world, in the world He recreates as He draws His people near, in the world that returns to life when the floods come, His Word guides a life that allows emotional health. Yet, sin has touched our world, the drought for the Word has taken its toll on lives, and though the rains come, the patches of weeds are still there. They will not be healed by one rain, nor by one season. It is the work of a lifetime of watering the seeds of the Word.

And so we continue to pray. May I never, never forget to pray for the barren land, watered, seeded. Lord, pull the weeds and bring the harvest.

Needy

I hate that word. I always think, “I don’t want to be a needy person.”

By that I mean that I don’t want to be begging people for more attention than they want to give. I don’t want anyone to spend time with me or do things for me because I demand it, but rather because they desire to do so. We all know many of the one I don't want to be  - the needy people who beg for approval, attention, and assistance and seem to know no boundaries in their cries.

It’s more forgivable in children, but still, one can only take so much.  As a teacher, a room of needy children can almost send me over the brink. The first thing I teach my students is to “Read the list on the board!” The second most-used statement? “Well, solve your problem!”  

On Tuesday, I had a room of needy children. One had been absent nearly a week and was lost in the piles of unfinished work. Another cannot read, so never works without assistance. Since the arrest of his dad, another has been unable to settle or focus. Someone else’s parents had been busy so, loving school, she had saved all her interactions up for the classroom And then there’s the one who, accustomed to his mom’s undivided attention, cannot understand why he cannot have mine. I had asked the class to begin their vocabulary assignments - for the first time without my assistance. And I’d asked them to read two sets of directions by themselves. And continue through the list while I did reading groups. And everyone NEEDED me. 

“Ms. Wells, like this?”

“Ms. Wells, is this math problem done now?”

“Ms. Wells, which part do I write?”

“Ms. Wells, I have fillings in my teeth.”

“Ms. Wells.” “Ms. Wells.” “Ms. Wells!”

It took every breath I could hold to maintain composure. But it was one of my precious girls who got to me. At first, I thought it was just the angle of her height (or lack thereof) to the pencil sharpener that was breaking the soft leads and requiring me to sharpen the pencils, but as the day wore on, I wondered why this new problem had surfaced, 8 weeks into the year. I suddenly realized that if she were not by my side, she was pretty much off-task and in trouble, but if she were near me, she functioned to her full high potential. Subconsciously, I think she knew this, too.

I thought about this smart, capable, lovable little girl. I wanted to snap her head off, but why? Because she needed me. I knew home was a little rough at times and every day I’d find sweet notes on my desk, left by a child, resilient yet - 

She needed me. Not because she was “needy,” but because she needed love and approval and boundaries. She didn’t need my help, really. She needed my presence.

Suddenly it hit me. 

My nature is NOT God’s nature. I don’t appreciate neediness, but He - He wants us to need Him. He wants us to desire His presence, to seek His approval in every move. He wants us to ask Him if we’re doing the right item on the list, if we’ve done it correctly. He gives us tasks that we’re not accustomed to, asks us to finish the assignment or read the directions, because He wants us to ask for help. God, unlike me, is omnipresent. He can handle every cry for help that is heard. There is enough of Him to meet the needs of every needy person.

God wants a Church full of needy children. Not needy toward one another, but needing Him. Needing His presence, His boundaries, His consistency, His guidance. God wants us to need HIM.

Even if it’s just to sharpen a pencil.

WHY I love WHERE I live.

My friend from Albuquerque came to stay the night last week, due to the hail storm (discussed later). She said that she was surprised she liked my home. I’m not sure what she expected. She also said that waking up in my house felt a little like camping; I’m hoping that refers more to the birds outside the window than the quality of her bed. Housing aside, I thought it would be worthwhile to describe a few of the reasons I love the community in which I live.

* The last week of school, my students did plays. They were short plays; I think all three together took about 10 minutes, but the kids worked hard and did well. I allowed them to perform multiple times for other classes, and encouraged them to invite their families, expecting perhaps the few most faithful parents. I never expected that a total of 33 parents, grandparents, and siblings of my 18 students would come in at various times to watch and clap and smile.

* Santa Rosa is on I-40. Sadly enough, that means there are often wrecks and some of those are truck wrecks (as in 18 wheelers). Now, I am not saying I’m happy that there is a wreck. What does make me happy is that in a small town, it’s not just the local garbage service hauling the cargo to the dump. That may happen, but let me tell you - our clean up folks know how to recycle. Everybody in Santa Rosa ate strawberries ‘til we turned red and started dripping earlier this spring. This summer - well, we’re working on turning green and softening up from the avocados someone rescued!

I only took a few. There were these times a hundred.

* On the 3rd of July, we had hail. Oh, did we have hail, and I was stuck in town. I’m sure the radio station reported on the hail, although I wasn’t listening, but I couldn’t help but compare the “news” with the news of storms I’d experienced in Albuquerque. There was no immediate TV coverage, no traffic reports, and, since it’s summer, no phone chains for school - but there were neighbors running down the street. “Can you reach ----? Their carport fell over!” Or calling to one another, “You can’t cross the bridge! But I’ll help you push your car out of the drift” Texts flew from one end of town to the other, reporting damage and traffic conditions, what could and could not be moved or changed. No one really needed the media. We had one another.

* On the 4th of July, we celebrated. We drove by the 3 foot high hail drifts and set off fireworks on the wet, wet ground. I must interrupt to describe the absolute most “All-American” meal I’ve ever eaten all at once: hamburgers, watermelon, corn on the cob, salad, and homemade ice cream... Anyway, Santa Rosa’s firework show was set off at the lake and watched from the church. We arrived as a group of friends and departed with a group of townspeople who liked the parking lot view (and our ice cream). The fireworks were huge and a long display for a small town, with individual individuals adding their home shows on the sides.

* On the 5th of July we had a parade. It was a fast parade and those of us who were going to walk beside the float could not keep up. We ran as far as we could and dropped off. Two 8 year olds had more energy than the rest and stayed with the float all the way to the park. They had to drop off too, and at the end, no one could find them. Let me tell you about life in a small town. These two 8 year olds are probably related to half the town, and despite the worry during the search, I think we all knew they were not really lost - we had simply lost them. (They wisely and safely returned to where the parade began.) 

Rural communities are more about people than place. And God's gift of community thrives in places where people cannot avoid one another.

These are my dad's cows after it rained. I had to put the picture somewhere.

Travels

Cool things can happen when you vacation on your own schedule with good friends. Here are a few of my favorites from my WY trip.

* My family loves to eat at Costco. Most of my friends look at me strangely when I suggest that as an option for eating out. On this vacation, I traveled with various members of a family of friends. There is a reason we are friends. It was THEIR idea to eat pizza and ice cream at Costco on the way to WY and pizza and ice cream at Sam’s Club on the way home.

It's nice to be friends with the famous.

* Jessica and I have been friends since we were 3, with only a few scattered incidences of enmity in the years that have passed. Jess is going to have a baby, increasing enjoyment of our favorite shared hobby: eating. But...she’s probably the only person I know who will straight out tell me, “You put way too much butter on your food.” (Butter is a food, so I don’t know what she’s talking about!)

* Jess is a public relations volunteer for Cheyenne Frontier Days. One day, we got to hear her on the radio; another day we saw her dress up to do a tour (hence the pictures). 

Uno

* My dog lives at her house. Really. His name is Uno. He is a giant lab who doesn’t look like a lab and is perfectly content to stand beside you with his head in your lap while you pet and he drools. When he was a puppy, Jess tried to send him home with me, but knowing how lonely he’d be, I’ve left him with her for 5 years :-).

Dianne working the water drill (to pump water up)

* I’ve yet to experience Cheyenne Frontier Days, being somewhat scared of the crowd, but Frontier Park is worth a visit at any point in the year. The gardens are beautiful, the historical markers interesting, but the free kids’ area competes with the Santa Fe Children’s Museum! There’s an aquifer system, a self propelled bridge, a water drill, a puppet area and a half dozen other fascinating activities.

Round 3

* I also went to Rock Springs for a day of the National High School Rodeo Finals. Rock Springs was hot, and there were a lot of people there (1300 contestants from the U.S., Canada, and Australia, and all the folks that accompanied them). Camping amidst the crowd, I heard a Mississippi accent trying to imitate a Canadian accent - priceless! I learned a little geography, a little history.... and a lot about the rodeo. The events are held in two arenas, with two events going on simultaneously - great boredom prevention! And I watched my friend trap shoot. It’s not nearly as easy as it looks, just for your reference, but all of the NM team were in the top half of contestants.

Road building?

* Coming home, we stopped at my friends’ family cabin in the mountains of Colorado. That is the stuff paintings are made of, I must say. After one of the best nights of sleep I’d ever had, we went on a mini “jeeping” adventure, courtesy of Caleb, who decided that dragging a tree from the area he was clearing constituted the beginning of a tour. We stacked tin in the barn and visited the rhubarb patch. No one knew there was a road to the rhubarb patch. There is now.

* And... rhubarb. Everyone pitched in to pick, but we could only bring so much because... 3 people, 2 guns, 3 sleeping bags, etc., etc., etc. kind of filled up my car. We didn’t pick a lot, and as I decided to snap a shot of the momentous occasion, I unwittingly stepped into an ant den. And stood there a minute. As I stepped backward again, I wondered why I was suddenly being bit. Everywhere. Joel spotted them and Dianne slapped me down. I stomped and pinched and fluffed - and narrowly avoided a strip down, escaping with only a dozen or so bites.

* We made our way back up to the cabin to begin our descent to NM. From Winter Park to Pueblo, a drive of about 3 1/2 hours, I used 4 gallons of gas. Thank God for gravity! I am also, truly, thankful for cruise control. It is the only thing that prevented me having a speeding ticket on that drive home and what would I have told the cop, “I’m sorry, Officer. It’s just that we’re all homesick and if we don’t get to Santa Rosa soon, bad things might happen!”?

One view from the cabin

Home to find green grass, I can say I am thankful to the God of creation who blesses in every way, shape, and form all the way from WY to NM. And I can say I am blessed far beyond what I deserve - now I better go out ready to serve!

Wind

We don't have tornadoes in New Mexico. The wind blows them all away.

This is the top of the very nice barn by my house.

This is where the wind blew the tin.

And this is the view from the bottom.

(It is fixed now).