Aug 21, 2011 | The Good Word
One of the baby’s toys stopped working properly, so we took it back and exchanged it for a new one. The new one is a little duck with a cylinder-shaped body that sounds like a wind chime, and as sounds and smells and tastes sometimes do, that little wind chime is a ticket for a flight with an 8,000 miles away, twelve years gone by destination.
I’m down by the river at my grandmother’s house in the summer time, and the gentle breeze off the water causes the wind chimes on her front porch to twinkle just so. I can smell the familiar waters that lap quietly onto narrow banks and look like iced tea, I can taste the flat Coca-Cola. I listen with my eyes closed and I’m glad to be back there for a brief moment, and I start thinking again, about what it means to be home.
When I was a little girl one of my best friends was also a neighbour, our back yards bordering one another, our families close friends. We built forts out of chairs and pillows and played games and ran around catching lightning bugs together. He knew the sound of my Dad’s car, and when he heard it speeding up our driveway, he felt sure he also heard his Mama calling, and took off out the back door for home.
Though the years have mellowed him, my Dad was a tough, and intimidating fella in those days.
As I think about it, I realise it was usually the case in our neighbourhood — when things got uncomfortable, if a fight started, if somebody was up to something you didn’t think you ought to be up to, it was time to run home.
All these years later, I’ve been thinking about home, and where it is and what it means and how I can still have it when it feels like it’s an address about 8,000 miles away. So I start thinking about where it is I run to when things get tough, when other people are doing stuff I don’t think they ought to be doing, when life is uncomfortable or downright scary.
Suddenly it’s as plain as day: my home is in Him.
I’ve struggled to see it, though I don’t know why — a quiet moment on a bed with a Bible, a whispered prayer from a heavy heart, a song on my lips from sorrow or thankfulness — these are the paths I’ve been running when things were hard, the paths that take me home. And even before that plane first took off six years ago, He was the home I was learning to run to.
Though I look forward to returning to the address where I spent my first seventeen years of life, I’m grateful this time away has presented me with the challenges that taught me where to run, Whom to run to.
What Good News it is that whether we have one address for the entirety of our lives, or a hundred, whether the place where we were born is a thousand miles away or no longer standing, still there is a home for us — one we can run to at any time, in any season. It’s the home that great cloud of witnesses who came before us ran to, chained in a prison cell or testifying to a mob about to stone them.
It’s in that secret place, spoken of in the Psalms, where we can abide under the shadow of the Almighty. That place where the Lord is a refuge and fortress, where He will cover you with His feathers and give you refuge beneath His wings.
I finally see it: though I’ve been travelling, and it has sometimes felt like wandering, these last six years, I’ve never really been far from Home.
My heart brims thankful to the God Who never once left me alone, the One Who saw. The One Who was with me. The One Who always will be. There aren’t too many things sweeter than the Coca-Cola as I remember it from my grandma’s house in my childhood, but this, friends, this is one.
May your heart always remember the route when it’s time to start running home.
xCC
“Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honour him. With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.” {Ps. 91: 14-16}
{Please come back tomorrow to Join Me in the Bushveld!}
Aug 20, 2011 | Baby Photos, South Africa
Now that we’re back (in Bloemfontein) after our trip to the Kruger, and then to the Drakensberg, and then to Durban, I’ve realised I forgot to tell you we brought a baby zebra home with us!
And just so you know, ’round these parts it’s pronounced ZEH-bruh instead of ZEE-bruh. {That first syllable rhymes with “yeah.”} And I personally feel that if this is where the ZEHbras live, and that is how they say it here, then that’s the way it oughta be. So if you hear the Bear say something about a ZEHbra in North Carolina, don’t you go trying to correct him. He’s got it right. ‘Nough said.
So, we ummed and ahhed about whether this special sort of adoption was a good idea, as we are still in need of some important paperwork in order to make it possible for us to bring the Baby Zebra across to the USA with us.
In the end, he was just way too cute to leave behind … and who would take care of him if we didn’t?
What?
You want to see his picture?
I thought you’d never ask!
Here’s our baby zebra!
{Quite possibly my favourite grandparent/grandchild photo, ever. Ever.}
Did I tell you his brother was a ZEHbra, too?
{Zebra Bear, Plettenberg Bay, early 2009}
Less than three weeks until our plane takes off for the UK — please pray that Baby Zebra’s paperwork is together by then!!
xCC
P.S. The bushveld posts are still a-brewing, but the first narration is on the way, I hope tomorrow!
Aug 19, 2011 | The Good Word
When studying Scripture I often notice an interesting pattern of paradox — like the truth that the humble shall be exalted while those who exalt themselves will be humbled. The first will be last and the last first. Whoever wants to become great should be a servant.
In Jeremiah 24, God uses a simple illustration to explain such a paradox to Jeremiah, concerning what is going to happen with the people of Judah. Initially, it would seem that good things are happening to bad people and bad things are happening to good people, but after further examination, it’s clear that the Lord has a different set of intentions.
The Lord shows Jeremiah two baskets of figs. One basket is full of very good figs, just ripened and nice for eating, while the other is full of very bad figs, so bad that they can’t be eaten. The figs are a metaphor for the different types of people living in Judah and Jerusalem at the time.
God is examining the people, the way you might separate out good fruit and bad fruit into two separate baskets, and making a discerning judgement about them.
God says, “Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans.” {Jer. 24:5, my emphasis} Remember, this is during the time of exile, when many of the Jews were carried away in captivity, to Babylon.
The Lord promises, “For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to the land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.” {v. 6 & 7}
He then speaks of the end for the “bad figs” among His people: “And as the bad figs which cannot be eaten, they are so bad…so will I give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, his princes, the residue of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. I will deliver them to trouble into all the kingdoms of the earth, for their harm, to be a reproach and a byword, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive them.” {v. 8 & 9}
At first sight, it would seem that a bad thing — being carried away into captivity — is happening to good people, while the good thing — remaining in Jerusalem — is happening to the bad figs among God’s people. But He explains that the “good figs” — those people who have hearts that are pleasing to Him — are being sent out for their own good, even though it surely would not have seemed so at the time. God has a plan to bring them back, to rebuild His people and their nation, where they can be planted and flourish again.
And though the people who stayed behind might have rejoiced that God was “sparing” them, instead we see He had something else in mind. As is often the case, He is discerning hearts, separating sheep from goats, good figs from bad figs, those who’ve made Him their Lord from those who just call Him the Lord.
We would do well to remember His words when life seems this way, when it seems that the wicked are prospering and the righteous are suffering. Remember that Isaiah 55: 8 & 9 says
“For My thoughts and not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Indeed, His ways are so much higher than ours we can scarcely comprehend how something that would seem bad, like being taken away from the only home and life and people you’ve ever known, could be good. But just as our perspective of the earth itself is changed completely when we look down on it from an airplane, or see satellite images from space, so God’s perspective on the things which concern us is so incredibly different from what we can see, standing in a single place in time, not knowing the future or His thoughts.
Whether we are saying goodbye to a dear friend sooner than we want, or simply stuck in traffic and running late getting where we want to be, we can trust that God is directing the course for His good figs — for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. {Rom. 8:28}
The Sermon in a Nutshell: Love God and trust Him, aim for having the heart of a good fig, and even when it seems like all is lost, you’ll be able to say It is well, It is well with my soul.
xCC
Aug 18, 2011 | Baby Photos, The Parenthood
I suppose it’s hard to understand until you live it… the way it feels like time starts flying.
One day it’s this
and then this
and then it feels like overnight it’s this
and this
and a first birthday
and growing and changing
and learning
and suddenly there’s a second birthday
and even more growing and changing
and before you know it, he’s spelling his name for strangers, and he’s figured out how to hold up three fingers and speak in full sentences and tell you “I love you Mommy, see you soon” when you put him down for a nap on his third birthday.
So you have to look at pictures to remember that this ever happened because the baby is gone, gone, gone.
What an honour and a treasure these three years have been!
Happy Birthday to our delightful Bear!
xCC
So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom. {Ps. 90:12}
Aug 17, 2011 | Baby Photos
We’re back in Bloemfontein after the trip to the Drakensberg and to Durban! The baby’s passport *should* be here in two weeks or so!! More about our trip soon!
It was a good two and a half years ago when the Bear made his first trip to South Africa. He was a four month old little sprite when we flew from Edinburgh to Joburg, preparing to introduce the first grandchild to his Goo-Goo and Gammy here in Bloemfontein.
It was a hot Bloemfontein Christmas, and we treasured every special moment.
It just so happened that little man number two arrived in Bloemfontein for his first ever visit at four months as well. So we decided that it was a good time to start a family tradition.
Mind you, we couldn’t put the Tank in a diaper and nothing else this time around. It’s winter, ya know!
I think the four month old visit to Bloemfontein {complete with the re-re-staging of these specific photos} is a good family tradition, and when the next little one comes along (not that we’re expecting any time soon!) we’ll be booking flights to arrive on the four month mark!
Do you think the Bear and the Tank look like brothers?
xCC
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