Laughter Through Tears

In the midst of this turmoil that I wrestle with in my heart and mind, while I am still waiting for answers to my questions, while I still don't understand why, while I continue to quake under this refining process, help me not to cause another to stumble.  Help me to reach out through my pain to comfort someone going through a similar experience.  And hardest of all, Lord (because it reminds me that you haven't chosen this miracle for me yet), help me to rejoice with someone who has just been given the miracle of a baby.  Also, please help me to react with love when others say things that are hurtful about this, my SOFTEST SPOT.

This quote from Debra Bridwell's book The Ache for A Child was given to me in the beginning of our infertility journey.  A new friend wrote it in a greeting card.  I can't explain why it meant so much.

Maybe it was because I barely knew her and yet she was reaching out to me.  Maybe it was because it was my first exposure to a book about infertility.  Maybe it was because she didn't write any of those silly platitudes that people often say at those times.  Maybe because it was honest, "I can't promise to understand ALL your feelings because everyone's journey is different.  But I am a good listener."

Maybe it was because it was in a funny card and laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.  The front had a picture of a woman holding a beautiful snow globe and it said, "Here's a helpful technique for managing stress during difficult times:  First, get one of those glass snow-domes with a happy little snowman and an idyllic, peaceful winter scene . . . (open the card) next, get a HAMMER!"

It made me laugh and it made me cry.  And I really do cherish those moments.  So I put the card in my Bible and have read it millions of times.  I had no idea at that time what a journey it was going to be!!

Digging Ditches Part 2

"Thus saith the Lord: Make this valley full of ditches."
2 Kings 3: 16

**Excerpts from Digging Ditches by Helen Roseveare.  For background see my last post.**

The Lord started to re-focus my heart from the ever-deep desire to live on the mountain-tops, to the realization that God's work is mostly done in the valleys.


So the next stage of my life's journey was established on that promise.  That it might not be easy, that there will be heartaches and deep problems on route, I was well aware.  He did not promise me a bed of roses without thorns.  But He did promise me that others would be blessed if I would obey and trust Him.


So I was to learn to go deeper down to "dig ditches" that were often unseen and unrecognized by others, but which God promised to fill with blessing for others.  My first instinct was "Okay, God, I'll dig you a Suez Canal!" but that was not what he asked for!  My Lord wanted just daily small obediences; He wanted me to do whatever needed to be done next without needing to be thanked or recognized, without a pedestal or a halo.


"You dig that ditch daily and I will fill it daily!"


He wants me to dig ditches, hundreds of little, often unconnected, ditches. Preaching, teaching, visiting, sharing, chatting, being available without seeing any special blessing, these were the ditches I dug.


I was not being asked to dig a Suez Canal, just a multitude of small ditches, each one individually important.


The digging might well involve blistered hands and a sore heart.


Was God asking me to live a day at a time, and do each small task as it arose without asking for one long-term goal?  Ditches?  It's not what we trained for!  We have no proper tools!  It's beneath our dignity!  Of course, without the ditches, the water God wanted to send would have been wasted.  The ditches were essential to contain the promised blessing.


And another ditch was dug and another blessing poured out by our gracious God.


And I must keep on digging ditches until my valley is full - without regrets, without looking backwards, (nor to be planning endlessly for tomorrow and the what-might-be of the future) but rather with joy and expectation waiting for the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour.

Digging Ditches Part 1

I've mentioned in my last post that I have two favorite books.  I talked about Disappointment with God here.  My other favorite book is Digging Ditches by Helen Roseveare.  Dr. Helen Roseveare was a missionary to the Congo from 1953 to 1973.  In 1964 she was taken prisoner by rebel forces and she remained a prisoner for five months, enduring beatings and rapings. She left the Congo and headed back to England after her release but returned to the Congo in 1966 to assist in the rebuilding of the nation. She helped establish a new medical school and hospital (the other hospitals that she built were destroyed) and served there until she left in 1973.  

She wrote Digging Ditches later in life (subtitled: The Latest Chapter of An Inspirational Life) after her earlier "mountain top experiences" as she was trying to figure out what the next "big" thing God had for her.  As a result of an illness of her own, she was asked to take a leave of absence of sorts from full-time missionary work; thus, leaving her in a position to seek God’s will for her life. In her pursuit, she landed on 2 Kings 3:16. God gives us valleys and we are to dig ditches. This book is about those ditches that she must dig, while holding onto His promises to fill them, even if she never sees how.

What hit me about this book is the realization that every life isn't filled with these continual really big moments or accomplishments that receive fame, thanks, or praise.  Millions of Christians live their life day to day digging ditches, trusting that they will be filled with life-giving water.  There was a time when I was always trying to find that big thing that God wanted me to do, this major accomplishment that God created me for.  But what if there's isn't this huge event or moment that He has planned for me?  What if I'm suppose to bring glory to God in all the seemingly mundane things I do on a daily basis?  What if it's about talking to people and sharing life with friends?  What if it's about comforting someone when they hurt?  What if it's about doing my job with a smile because someone walking in the door needs one?  And what if I never see or hear about the results of my obedience?

But It's Not Fair!

Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey is one of my two favorite books. I could read it over and over and over again. And I think the entire book is worth quoting. But this is the part I've been reading lately. It's about fairness. Fairness is very important to me. And I often hear myself saying, "But that's just not fair". For years I cried out to God, "God, you're not being fair. This isn't fair!". These excerpts have meant a lot to me through the years.

I challenge you to go home and read again the story of Jesus. Was life ‘fair’ to him? For me, the cross demolished for all time the basic assumption that life will be fair!


Jesus offered no immunity, no way out of the unfairness, but rather a way through it to the other side.


God will sometimes seem unfair from the perspective of a person trapped in time. Only at the end of time, after we have attained God’s level of viewing, after every evil has been punished or forgiven, every illness healed, and the entire universe restored, only then will fairness reign.

At All Costs

To be commanded to love God at all costs, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness – especially in the wilderness – you shall love Him.

- Frederick Buechner from Secrets from the Dark: A Life in Sermons.

In 1997 driving across the Jimmie Davis Bridge on my way to work, I was struck by this.  Not just struck.  I was moved, I was touched.  I was overwhelmed with the understanding of how and why I could have pure joy and love for my heavenly Father when my mother was 12 hours away dying a painful death.  I can't explain it.  I can't put words to it.  But this chapter in Buechner's book comes so close.

It was there, in that wilderness, that for the first time in my life I caught sight of something of what it must be like to love God truly.  It was only a glimpse, but it was like stumbling on fresh water in the desert, like remembering something so huge and extraordinary that my memory had been unable to contain it."  "I did not love God, God knows, because I was some sort of saint or hero.  I did not love Him because I suddenly saw the light (there was almost no light at all) or because I hoped by loving him to persuade him to heal the young woman I loved.  I LOVED HIM BECAUSE I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF.  I loved him because the one who commands us to love is the one who also empowers us to love, as there in the wilderness of that dark and terrible time I was, through no doing of my own, empowered to love him at least a little, at least enough to survive.  And in the midst of it, these small things happened that were as big as heaven and earth because through them a hope beyond hopelessness happened.

There are a few moments in time that I remember so vividly...the sounds, the sights, the smell, the feeling.  This moment on that bridge is one of those for me.

(You should read this whole book or at least all of Chapter 14.)