Generations

Generations. Yeah, that's what the man was talking about. But really, was it?

My Human Development Across the Lifespan professor has a way of packaging a neat little sermon into a lecture about the latest read on child and adult development from our textbook. You think you're listening to a lecture on, say, personality types and how they develop. Then all of a sudden you realize you're being hoodwinked, and you are now in a political motivation talk with your fellow hoodwinked students. Personally, it doesn't bother me in the least, considering my professor's views are almost exactly the same as mine. Or it didn't much until yesterday.

Oh, there was the time he laid abuse at the door of single mothers. But I could see that, as it was also in the book, though I still do not agree that they are the largest population of abusers of children. But yesterday was different. The prof began talking about this generation of young adults - MY daughter and son - and the girl next to me and I just looked at each other with skepticism.

I don't think so.

My seat neighbor thought of her younger brother, and his extreme depression. I thought of my daughter and her escaping, and my son who has ideas but not the slightest faith that they will ever do any good, given the bureaucratic shredder they'll be put through.

I thought of the dark music that I see coming out of the young people, the art, the movies they love - Twilight, even Harry Potter - and how these young people are depicted and how they depict themselves, and I thought, "No, they do not look at their future positively."

I think kids and young people these days have a very grim view, and a very good grasp on reality. How can they not? We've shoved it in their faces since before they were born! Starting wtih lessons in kindergarten about how the earth has been beat up by their parents and grandparents, they were taught that they were the saviors of it and that we are counting on them to fix it for us. All through elementary, middle, and high school, the message is pounded into them: "Save us! Save us! Save us!!"

Would you feel positive about your future under those circumstances? I don't think so. And they don't, no matter how much the professors in colleges think the do. Perhaps they have polled college students and come up with a skewed curve or something. College students would be more positive than the average schmo: they're getting themselves out of the situation they were born into, they're making better lives for themselves. They would tend to be looking to a brighter future than the guy on the street, still unable to get a job due to the economy, trying desperately to help his single mother feed his younger siblings. Or the young single mother who went to cosmetology school to get a roof and some food for her children, and now she's stuck. Or the gifted young man working at Fred Meyer who has a plan for the economy that just might work, but will never see the light of day in this society. But our parents and grandparents let them know every day how we count on them, how it's they who have now the responsibility of undoing what we've become

I would run away too. Or develop Tourette's Syndrome out of nerves. Or maybe just end it all, if I weren't such a coward. Or, if I had that supreme chance, I'd make a movies full of the darkness of it all to tell my parents what they've done to us, or write a book about it, or sing songs - or more like rap raps - full of the despair I'd be filled with.

If... I didn't have the absolute knowledge of the love of a God who is Father to me, who holds the world in his hands, who already has the solution for our earth's future all figured out, and who is bringing into being that solution daily, hourly. If I didn't know that the Creator will never abandon the creation, but will one day bring it into health and unity with him through his great redeeming love act in Jesus on the cross and on Easter Day, when he raised him from the dead - then I'd be somewhat tempted to engage in the same self-pity, go nutsy, or even "postal".

But I do know it. I know it with every cell of my physiology. I know it with all my heart. I know it with my entire, puny, human, distracted mind. I've been allowed to live long enough, it seems, to have lived along into the answers Rilke was talking about when he said to "live the questions". Even as my life is shatters to pieces around me, I know most definitely that though all our efforts seem useless, and the world is becoming darker and darker around us, the darkness has no effect on the answer, because it's already been spoken in Jesus from an empty grave, which has no victory anymore. I know it as sure as day follows night, water flows downhill, and the world turns eastward. The Creator still holds the creation and all that is therein, which includes us human beings, even though we messed it up real bad.

And he holds our children. And he has the Final Answer.

A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing.
Our helper he amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe.
His craft and power are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing,
Were not the right man on our side,
The man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he!
Lord Sabaoth his name,
From age to age the same.
And he must win the battle.

And though this world with devils filled
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim -
We tremble not for him,
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure:
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers
No thanks to them abideth.
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill,
God's truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever.

It has been harrowing.

I would not wish this on my worst enemy..... well, maybe my worst enemy..... No. Not even him. No parent should ever, ever, ever have to go through what I'm experiencing. But then, what makes me so special?

Last January my daughter ran away with the gypsies. She .... or somebody.... sent back  messages to the effect that she did not wish to be contacted by anyone who knew or loved her; that we were to simply pretend she never existed, and that she was going where she could escape our life-long "control and abuse"; she .... or someone ..... sent a message to her brother saying she was "going away to protect" him. Protect him? From what? who?? How???

These questions have never been answered. My daughter left a trail of tears and broken hearts behind her to rival the Trail of Tears. And my family is a house divided. Already re-evaluating my own life decisions, this threw a wrench in the works the like of which I have never experienced, nor ever ever ever wish to again. I do not know what the outcome will be, and I do not know how long it will be before I do know.

Needless to say, I've been thrown into a tail-spin that sends me lurching from one end of myself to the other, asking the questions any loving parent would ask herself:

"How did she get to this place?"
"What was it I said - did?"
"How can I help her now?"
"Is she safe??!!"
"Where could she possibly be??"
"How can I find her?"
"What on earth should I say when I see her again?"
"How can I possibly ever forgive the people who led her down this path???"

Pondering these questions has led me over and over to my pastor, counselor, best friends, specialists, and daily - sometimes hourly - to prayer and Scripture. I keep the radio tuned to the Christian stations I abhorred for so long because of the shallowness of the music - yes, I've been a music snob most of my life. No longer. I need the Word in any way, shape, or form these days, so I'll take it from anyone in any form.

The other day, the Word came to me from my pastor, who I'd gone to pray with over a revelation found in my daughter's journal from a year ago. Apparently, she'd been planning an "escape" since childhood. The earth had seemed to drop from under me, and I ran to the Lord, who is "my strong tower".  After sharing the journal and praying, Libby suggested I read a little book she pulled off the shelves lining the study walls: The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller.

This morning, reading in chapter two, I came across this, in reference to the father in the story dividing his property and giving up the half to his younger son:

"However, this division of the estate only occurred when the father died. Here the younger son asks for his inheritance now, which was a sign of deep disrespect. To ask this while the father still lived was the same as to wish him dead. The younger son was saying, essentially, that he wants his father's things, but not his father. His relationship to the father has been a means to the end of enjoying his wealth, and now he is weary of that relationship. He wants out. Now. 'Give me what is mine,' he says."

My daughter asked for her money. She didn't have any, but she thought she did, perhaps because her grandmother had recently died, and she'd heard how she would inherit from her someday. But she didn't, though perhaps she didn't know that. She wanted the money which had been in her account - a refund from the fine institution of higher learning she had withdrawn from in the fall. But that money was never hers: it was payment I made for her. It is safely now in a savings account, awaiting her brother's entrance into college in a couple of years, if he should choose that; or my own, as I am going back to school. But it was never hers.

In the story of The Prodigal Son, the father gives him the money. I've never understood why, and so have done the exact opposite. We feared the people who enticed her away, and we feared her own confusion. We feared she would wake up one day and regret it, and then have no way to mend her life. But perhaps we made a mistake.

"The father's response is even more startling than the request. This was an intensely patriarchal society, in which lavish expressions of deference and respect for elders and particularly for one's parents were of supreme importance. A traditional Middle Eastern father would be expected to respond to such a request by driving the son out of the family with nothing except physical blows."

No, we did not drive her out - she had already taken herself out. And "blows" were not my way of communicating - I'd unlearned that way long ago.  Words, however, I sent her, in any way, shape, or form I could find to send them. I called, but no one answered. I left at least one voice mail message, but then her phone went dark. Her father called the people who got her into this mess, but they stone-walled and would not let us speak with her. I sent email after email, posted on Facebook, and sent private messages. None were answered, and my own Notes on my Facebook account that were written specifically for her were mocked and jeered by her. This I knew because she left us her cell phone later, when she left her car at the police station for us to pick up, and informed us through a "Cease and Desist" email sent to her father's work account. Nothing I could do would bring anything good, only bad.

And so I quit. I "ceased and desisted". I let her go.

Oh, we still feared she had been kidnapped by the gypsies. In fact, to this day I do believe that is the correct interpretation of these events. But she doesn't know it, yet. She still thinks, apparently, that she's made the great escape from a responsible life and a family who would strongly encourage her to be true to herself, her gifts and her talents, and her own commitments. She still thinks, apparently, that she's got it good and that she'll never have to face the music she left behind. I am truly sorry that she is still digging her hole so very deep, because all the responsibilities she left, as a person over 18 and a legal adult, are still waiting for her here. Since we have no address for her, we are keeping them safely for the day when she returns and takes them up again, the day when she'll have to pay all the back-bills and answer to the IRS. No, she doesn't know yet that she's been kidnapped.

Perhaps we have the wrong approach. Perhaps we should have acted as the father in the parable, who instead of giving the culturally required "blows", gave what was asked:

"This father doesn't do anything like that. He simply 'divided his property between them.' To understand the significance of this we should notice that the Greek word translated as 'property' here is the word bios, which means 'life.' A more concrete word to denote capital could have been used but was not."

So the father "divided his life between them." Oh yes. I know what that is. Oh yes. My life has been torn in two ever since my son's Tourette's surfaced. "How can I give enough of myself to him, and still have something left for my daughter?" was my constant question to myself during his middle school years, in which we had only questions and no answers from doctors or anyone else. When finally we had a diagnosis, there was so much research to try and find a cure, try and find something, anything, that would subdue the whole body twitches and tics that so disrupted his everyday existence, and ours. His sister was a casualty of that time. How can a parent divide herself in half and survive? So the father "divided his life between them," and suffered death to half himself, as he watched his son run off into the sunset with his inheritance, thinking perhaps it were better if he actually were dead, as I have thought at times.

I will keep reading this book. I need it. I am eager to find out the writer's perspective on how the son came to himself in the pig trough, turned around (the literal translation of "repent"), came humbly back to his family home. I do not want to project, but how can I help praying this will be the end to my daughter's current story? Of course I am hoping this! Of course I am typing it here so she will see it - if she is looking! Of course I risk driving her further away in the process! I will give up anything -

Perhaps I didn't give up enough, though, according to the parable. Perhaps I should have let her take the money out of her account and squandered it on the pigs, and then she would have sooner seen her position in the pig trough. But our fear was that somehow she was being used (and I still believe it is so) to get not just the little bit that was in that account, but everything we own. Fear.... our enemy's great tool, which he wields with exquisite accuracy, aided by the fine intellect of our daughter. What a travesty! He could have gotten not only the half, but the whole of our estate, we feared. And so we put the kabosh on her taking money out of the account which was rightfully mine, instead of doing as the father in the parable and simply letting her have it all.

But the question will be there until she returns, "Should we have done as the prodigal's father? Should we have helped her run away with the gypsies?"

Recently I read a short line in a small gift book in a place called Sleighbells, a Christmas shop near our home; her former boyfriend/fiance works there. I was there to buy fudge from him - he's the fudge sampler, and very good at it, too. My visits there are therapeutic for both of us. But this time I actually found a Word, in this tiny book. Perhaps I should have bought it, but I have bought too many things, thinking they are the cure. So I simply wrote down this line:

"Every parent is at sometime in his life the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope." (John Ciardi)

So that's what I do. No matter where I am to be found after this, my home, even in someone else's house, will be open to the hope that one day I'll hear a knock or the doorbell, the phone will ring, and it will be my prodigal wanting love. And one thing has never changed since she left: I will always love her, wholly, passionately, truly, and unregrettingly.

No matter what she does to me.

"You can't outrun grace."

You’re best friends with the word “regret”
And you’re afraid that your life’s been wasted
You don’t think people really change
And you’re a mess and you’ll always be the same
And you doubt if you’ll ever get it turned around

So you’ve been running, searching for something
But you’re looking in a place you don’t belong
But it’s never too late, you can’t outrun grace
No, mercy doesn’t care what you’ve done
So, come home. So, come home

You can try and fix your broken empire
And put bricks on a cracked foundation
But you’d be building castles on the sand
There’s power in the blood of Jesus
And your Father’s screaming “just come home”
And He’s reaching out His hand

I know you’ve been running, searching for something
But you’re looking in a place you don’t belong
But it’s never too late, you can’t outrun grace
No, mercy doesn’t care what you’ve done
So, come home. So, come home

From the shadows, from the wrong roads,
From the darkness, from the unknown,
To redemption, something beautiful,
To a new love, to a new home

I know you’ve been running, searching for something
But you’re looking in a place you don’t belong
But it’s never too late, you can’t outrun grace
No, mercy doesn’t care what you’ve done
So, come home. So come home.*

Just come home...


*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLU6LLIBbt0&feature=related

Princess Living

Dear friends,

Recently God has seen fit to test me, and to allow satan to "sift me like wheat" (a paraphrase of something Jesus said to Peter once). There are a few circumstances in my life right now which, given alone, would each "sift" the heart of the bravest princess in the highest kingdom. I have three such. And often I feel am indeed "sifted like wheat", poured out through little holes in my own heart continually throughout each day.

But I looked up that quote, and it happens after Jesus creates the ritual of Communion, the historic gathering of the Church to commemorate the Last Supper. I remember what Peter did later, how he denied Jesus three times in the courtyard, waiting for the verdict to come down on Jesus. How he cursed and swore to prove he was not a follower of the Meek One. How he then went and cried his soul out in anguish - because he'd done the denying Jesus had predicted? because Jesus was about to be crucified? because all his dreams of the Kingdom-come-right-now were vaporizing before his eyes?

I've been there, and recently.

I won't go into detail on any of the three sifting circumstances now in place in my life. But you need to know they are no less powerful to me than Jesus' impending crucifixion to Peter. Sometimes it seems to me my Savior disappears, vaporizes, in the midst of the doubt-producing events occurring as I type this. As a child of the King, raised to act as such, taught to walk in the light and not in the darkness, schooled to show myself approved unto God, this presents yet another hardship: how to consistently walk through it all, carrying myself like the princess I am.

I have a beloved friend, my best friend since high school, whom I can call at any time of the day or night, and talk about anything my heart desires. Such a friend is worth more than her weight in gold, especially in these times. Lately I've been calling just about every other day or so, and she never fails to remind me that I am a princess of the Most High King, never fails to help me figure out what that means for the day I'm in. It seems in this time - when I finally think I've found a footing on this shifting ground, and then one of the three trying circumstances tugs at my strings and pulls me out of kilter - it seems there are no answers for how a Christian woman can walk like a princess of the Most High King. There are too many stressors, too many unknowns, too many surprises in this life. How can one stick to something so archaic as princesshood amid the daily American life of a mother in this new century? How can I hold to the promises and "just keep walking" with my head high and a smile on my face, while all around me the waters are raging and the mountains are crumbling and the things I placed my trust in long ago are evaporating? Where is the instruction? What are the rules?

This morning I logged onto my email to read the daily devotion and verse I receive automatically from the Bible Gateway website. Lately these have been unusually appropos to my situation. Hm, funny thing that... Today is no exception. Here is the verse, arrived in the night while I slept, generated months ago by whoever placed it in the memory banks of the website's computer:

Colossians 3:12

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

I love this verse for more than one reason. First, it tells me I am chosen. Second, it tells me I am loved. And third, it instructs me how to walk. I may not like the idea of walking in this manner. I'd much rather throw a fit and go into hysterics and lean on those who offer themselves far more than is called for. But God commands his children to "clothe yourselves" in the fruit of the Spirit, clothing that becomes a child of His. I find this command precious to my soul.

Also, when Jesus had risen from the dead and gone to meet the disciples on the lake shore, frying fish for their breakfast, He made sure to let Peter know he was forgiven. He didn't ask anything of him except love. He didn't tell him how bad he'd been, He didn't show him up in front of the others, He didn't rake him over the coals for his triple betrayal. He simply asked if he loved Him, and gave him the task of feeding the flock of the Church, including the little ones. How amazing! How it goes against all modern concepts of how to pick a CEO! Who's going to run the Church of Jesus? Why, the guy who failed the most at supporting Him in His hour of need!! Of course! What??

So when I fall flat on my face at being a princess, the Most High King doesn't give me a dressing down in front of His court. He lifts me up gently and assigns me a new job that only He can see me fit for. And He gives me instructions in His Word. And these instructions are nothing new, I've grown up with them. But now I see them as more beautiful than ever before, now I see them as not a choice, but a command, more than ever before. Now I take on this command, and devote myself to wearing daily the clothes of a princess of the Most High King, "compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience".

Against such there is no law.

Simply walking,
Patty

Words From Wise Ones

Sometimes Charles Spurgeon gets it just right where others fail:

God often takes away our comforts and our privileges in order to make us better Christians. He trains his soldiers, not in tents of ease and luxury, but by turning them out and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long mile with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their backs. Well, Christian, may not this account for the troubles through which thou art passing? Is not the Lord bringing out your graces, and making them grow? Is not this the reason why he is contending with you?

"Trials make the promise sweet;
Trials give new life to prayer;
Trials bring me to his feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there."

This may bother some folks, but right now it is a comfort to me. And to some folks I would say, like God said to Job:

"Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
     Let him who reproves God answer it....
"Now gird up your loins like a man;
     I will ask you, and you instruct Me.
"Will you really annul My judgment?
     Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?
"Or do you have an arm like God,
     And can you thunder with a voice like His?
"Adorn yourself with eminence and dignity,
     And clothe yourself with honor and majesty.
"Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
      And look on everyone who is proud, and make him low.
"Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him,
     And tread down the wicked where they stand.
"Hide them in the dust together;
     Bind them in the hidden place.
"Then I will also confess to you,
     That your own right hand can save you."

And though I have complained at times, I say with Job:

"I know that You can do all things,
     And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?'
     "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,
          Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."
'Hear, now, and I will speak;
     I will ask You, and You instruct me.'
"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
     But now my eye sees You;
Therefore I retract,
     And I repent in dust and ashes."

For I am trusting that like Job, the LORD will bless my latter days more than my beginning. And I am following the Song of the King, not the song of the Hopenots.

It helps more if you are going to sing, if you will please sing the first, and not the second. I'm not a fan of Charles Ives, and I have very finely tuned musical ears, so more than one song at a time just reeeeeeally bothers me. Ya know.

Thanks. Won't you join me?

Simply singing,
Patty

A letter to my friends

Dear Friends,

I wanted to keep you in the picture where my own emotional state is, as I know you all have prayed about that too. 

Yesterday, I woke up around 3:15am, and started crying because I couldn't give my little girl a party for her birthday, or even go and see her, or wish her happy birthday and expect she will see it. So I started praying, and searching the Scriptures, and waiting on the Lord. For two hours I did this. I posted "I love you" all down her Facebook wall, in hopes somehow she could see it, but I don't think she looks at it anymore at all.

Then, around 5:30am, as I was reading the Psalms, God brought to me over and over certain ones of the songs He gave his people all those centuries ago that exactly speak to my situation. I pondered this, and other evidences of God's love in my life recently, and understood that He wants me to TRUST Him. My daughter had given me some warning of all this, a couple weeks before it happened. But being Christmas and New Year's, I had pushed it all into the back of my mind (which was, I'm sure, what some intended). I reviewed her words to me, as far as I can remember them in my addled brain, and the word that most came to the fore was TRUST. She wanted us to trust her. And so I have decided to do just that, really trusting in GOD'S ability to keep her safe, and her intention not to harm us whom she loves. She made me understand then that she wanted to keep us from any more pain and hardship than was necessary.

I believed then that she was getting into some kind of trouble, but didn't know what, nor how to get her to listen to me, so didn't push it at the time. And the holidays sent it clean out of my mind, together with a life decision I was working on, and an unexpected, positive, life-changing experience. For this I have been full of guilt at times, as the enemy hurls his darts at me. But God is faithful to remind me of His forgiveness, and gives the peace which passes all understanding in this situation. I know I am loved with a love as vast as the ocean, and I know I am in the center of His will, seeking a way to serve Him completely at last.

And so I came to peace in the end, TRUSTING in God's almighty hand on my daughter, TRUSTING the Spirit within her, TRUSTING her own intentions as they are good. If the lesson in TRUST had not begun in December, I do not know if I would have been able to face yesterday. But God is able, who delivers me from the wily snares of the enemy. And His timing is oh! so perfect!

And so throughout her birthday, I was given guidance and assurance that I could rest on His unchanging love, and I laid down the heavy burden of rescuing my daughter from the place she'd got herself by her ignorance of the world, and took up the burden which is light, which is simply TRUSTING the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of the God of the universe instead.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise God all creatures here below.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Praise God, the Source of all our gifts,
Praise Jesus Christ, whose power uplifts,
Praise the Spirit, Holy Spirit,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!!

Simply loved,
Patty

Re-echoing the Praise of the Lord

January 15, 2011, will forever mark the day between my former existence as a happy mother of two, and my new existence as a mother of one teenage, musical, artistic, very intelligent Boy Scout whose beloved big sister suddenly, out of a clear blue sky, ran away and left him in a clinically anxious state, and one..... what kind of girl??

On that day our daughter, aged 19 going on 20, broke up with her boyfriend of 3 years, with whom she was practically engaged - had indeed made plans - in a most rude manner, over the phone. When I learned of this, I began delving into her friendships and found out she had cut off ALL ties with ANY of her friends. Facebook seemed the only connection she had left open. Over the next 24-36 hours we discovered she was in thick with a cult, and was lobbing accusations of abuse at us, her parents. We have subsequently learned that she has not attended ANY of the classes or sessions she enthusiastically set up for herself in the previous weeks, including her new college, George Fox, who verified that she had canceled all her classes. This in itself proved to us that our daughter was not acting out of her own will. To say this was disconcerting or even alarming would be a grave understatement of our feelings as parents. We were TERRIFIED for our daughter's safety!

We attempted to call, but were met with the immediate voice mail message.We called the host family where she was staying, but were stone-walled. As all messages from her appeared to have been written by someone else, we feared the worst. Yet when the police went to the home in which we last knew she was staying, they told us she was fine, an adult, and we should just back off.

The threats in her messages seemed to intensify over the next days, as I strove by using Facebook to reach my daughter herself somehow. It was clear her computers and telephone had been hijacked by the cult, and messages were being sent by people other than our daughter. Her voice on the phone and in messages was hers, but it was oddly changed, with a robotic quality that scared us very much. She was obviously repeating words she'd been coached to use. What were they feeding our daughter? What kind of mind manipulation were they using? Who could we get to help us?! The police were useless, and counselors were all out of town or otherwise occupied, including our daughter's own sleep therapist. The help friends gave us in the way of websites to visit and books to read merely added to my confusion, as it was all too new for me to digest all the information and sort out what would be helpful to us. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. This cult leader knew what he was doing.

The other day, our daughter left the car we'd bought for her to drive, along with everything to do with it (including the AAA card I'd gotten for her safety, cut in several pieces), her house key, and her cell phone, parked in front of the police station. She sent us a "Cease and Desist" letter, we believe was crafted by the cult leader, which was also sent to the policeman on the case. We thought this very odd, and that prompted a visit from me personally. I demanded to know what was going on with my daughter. The two policemen who had seen her the day before sat down with me very patiently and went over it all again. Basically they told me for the umpteenth time that since she was over 18 they could do nothing, and she has the right to do as she pleases. They also told me that if she wanted a restraining order she would have grounds, given the number of times we had attempted to contact her within a week. This feels like a threat. Me! Threatened by my own daughter together with my hometown police for attempting to protect her!!

So we have had to take our hands completely off this situation. We have no knowledge of our daughter's whereabouts. We have no way to find out. We know she is penniless and without any form of transportation, except what she is able to beg from others. We know she has probably got somebody to buy her a new cell phone, because she removed the battery and SIM card from hers when she left it in the car (which is theft, as those batteries are not cheap).

To say this keeps me awake nights would be yet another vast understatement of the facts.

But I am a child of the King. My daughter is a child of the King. All my life I have heard the promises, sung them, lived by them, taught them to my children. My daughter knows who she is, and in her heart is buried the Word of God, the Sword of the Lord, hidden in her heart with songs and memory verses and stories from Bible School, Sunday School, recordings of Christian singers and choirs she's sung in, and lullabies I used to sing her, one of which we sang together in my Mothers Day concert on behalf of Haiti last spring, another of which we sang together just last month at her grandmother's funeral. And if my life has not acted as witness to the Truth of those Words I sought to teach her, it is myself at fault, and not the promises.

We are not powerless.

I have been extremely distraught over this until now. I have gone ballistic on Facebook with so many posts people have hidden me or just turned it off. Some of them sent me messages, as they were very concerned for me. I thank God for them. They were right.  So I turned off Facebook and gave my login information to my best friend to check for any messages from my daughter. Of course there haven't been.

I have had difficulty smiling at people, answering their "How are you today?" in the store without saying just a plain, "Awful!" I have shed tears at odd times in odd places. And I cannot stand to look at the row of Growing Up Girls in the cupboard, waiting for the time my daughter should move out and have her own china closet to keep them in safely. This Tuesday, February 1, will be her 20th birthday. I can not even think of it. There has NEVER been a year I was not planning a party or get-together to celebrate God's leaving this most amazing child with us another year.

I have gone over and over what reasons my daughter could have for so breaking the hearts of everyone, EVERYONE, who loves her. I admit we have made mistakes, and I admit my attention has not been fully on her words in the last two months. If only she would come and sit down with me, and talk, just the two of us together, for a little while. Perhaps we could understand each other somewhat and put this behind us. I am not even permitted to ask for that. Not even permitted to try and apologize for whatever it is she is so unhappy about that she had to remove herself. But her words and actions beforehand lead me to believe she was not unhappy with us until she went with the cult, who twisted her mind around in knots and confused her so she doesn't know which way is Home.

I'd been hoping for a song to come to me, like they always do, that would speak to this situation. It's how I pray, and God is always faithful to send one. But there seemed no song for this. There are no words for this. But as I walked in the park today with my little dog, Jeffy, the sun came out. There were many people in the park today, as it was a planting day. The river was lovely, reflecting the houses on the other side. They were upside down... just like my life has been turned by my daughter.

As I walked through the filtered sunlight with Jeffy skipping beside me, finally a song came to me. It's on page 518 of The United Methodist Hymnal, copyrighted 1989, which includes a few musical contributions by my daughter's Godmother, Elise Eslinger,which has nothing to do with this; and it goes like this:

O Thou, in whose presence my soul takes delight,
On whom in affliction I call,
My comfort by day and my song in the night,
My hope, my salvation, my all!


Where dost thou, dear Shepherd, resort with thy sheep,
To feed them in pastures of love?
Say, why in the valley of death should I weep,
Or alone in this wilderness rove?


O why should I wander, an alien from thee,
Or cry in the desert for bread?
Thy foes will rejoice when my sorrows they see,
And smile at the tears I have shed.


Restore, my dear Savior, the light of thy face,
Thy soul-cheering comfort impart;
And let the sweet tokens of pardoning grace
Bring joy to my desolate heart.


He looks! and ten thousands of angels rejoice,
And myriads wait for his word,
He speaks! and eternity, filled with his voice,
Re-echoes the praise of the Lord.


(Joseph Swain, 1791 - Ps. 23)

I will praise Him. Though I have no earthly reason to right now, I will sing praises. It's who I am, a daughter of the King, and it's the job He gave me when I was born. And I intend to act, above all, like a true daughter of the King acts, by the grace of God.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it! And you can take that to the bank.

Simply T-R-U-S-T-ing,
Patty

Love is of God

It was as if it were a death, and an old one at that.

She sifted through the photos, old photos, of their youth. They were still the same, those children. They hadn't grown or changed, they were still laughing just as they did so long ago, still walking across the tarmac to their waiting family, still planning to make the move that directed their entire lives and who their children would be and why they would eventually part ways.

And that was the answer, the reason at the core. They hadn't grown together. It's impossible for two vines to grow together if one refuses to grow, refuses to act like a vine but must immitate a fence post. The one growing vine will curl around it and even put tentacles into the fence-post-like vine, but eventually it must shoot out and away, seeking other company in the sunlight.

And so she had, while he stayed in his childhood, afraid to grow toward the light, and even shunning the touch of her leaves, planting himself firmly in the mud, and ridiculing her as she reached with all her might upward, ever outward, toward the joyous, rain-filled air.  They were never alike. They were planted wrongly in the garden.

Oh, it wasn't the Gardener's fault. But it was so nonetheless. Some underling had made the mistake, seeing the vine reaching, reaching toward the other in its shoot days. The Gardener had simply allowed it, to give the underling a lesson perhaps. But the underling hadn't got it, had left the two, she wrapped around him, he unwilling to grow, all the years locked by the rule of the garden - no one must move what has been planted - for so many, many years. And little vines had come up through the soil between them, sheltered by the growing vine from the intense sun of summer and worst rain of winter. But the two vines did not grow together. It was impossible.

The little vines were grown large enough now to stand much of the sun and rain on their own. She was almost as dead as the vine-turned-fence-post beside her. The rain fell gently on her upturned leaves: "Come out! Come out! Higher, climb higher into the open space where the sun will shine! We are almost finished watering the earth for awhile, the light will come again. Lift up your head!"

And so she did, as she put the pictures back into the disintegrating album. She looked up, and looked around. And she wasn't disappointed, there was the light! There was a whole garden all around her! And she knew there was the Gardener, though she couldn't yet see Him. And there were other vines, and especially that one....

Then she heard the voice of the Gardener saying, "Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh." And she knew it was time to put away the former things, for behold, all things are becoming new! And she stretched out her tendrils toward that other vine with all her might, but something gave her pause, something undescribable here.

But reach she must. The Gardener had said it, and that voice she never disobeyed had commanded her to LIVE. So live she must.

She put away the old photos. She would begin tomorrow to sort them all, like she'd planned for so many years, but life had got in the way. Just like it had got in the way of her growing toward the light. She would grow in a new direction, alone in the garden if necessary. She would be growing, though, and living. If not, she would end up a fence post, good for nothing but hemming in and saying "No!", even when "Yes!" is what's written.

This was her salvation.

But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us — by me and Silas and Timothy — was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.