Spotlight

We arrived at the small, elementary school gymnasium at 2:00 in the afternoon.  The lights were set low and the seats were filled with parents and grandparents, siblings and friends. The risers remained empty, as did the staging.  We made our way to the few open chairs remaining and waited for the show to begin.  Our oldest daughter, Hannah, had been cast for the lead role as Mother Goose in the Lincoln Elementary production of “Lemonade”…soon to be a Broadway hit…if by Broadway, one would mean the main street in Little Falls, Minnesota. 

The entire 2^nd grade cast took the stage and filled the risers. The play began, and we quickly learned that the cast was having a very bad day! Little Bo Peep had lost her sheep, the Three Little Pigs had just endured the destruction of their homes by the Big Bad Wolf, and Humpty Dumpty had just gotten all cracked up!

Just as the calamity reached the crescendo, the lights went out…and a single spotlight shone on one individual on the stage.  It was Mother Goose! My daughter!  My heart swelled with fatherly pride as she began to sing with the shaky voice of a nervous 2^nd grader.  The spotlight was fixed on her.  My eyes and ears, along with everyone else’s in the building were all directed to her.  There she was…lit up in the light…the center of attention, and I was proud of her!  She was amazing…she nailed her solo!

It was a wonderful experience for her…as well as for myself.

 I have often pondered the purpose of spotlights.  They are designed to draw our attention to the focal point of the light. I used to use a mega-bright spotlight while delivering pizzas in college. The light would light up the neighborhoods as I searched houses and mailboxes for the house numbers. The light drew my eyes to each point it touched.  In fact, many home owners would come to the window expecting to find an officer of the law searching for some vagrant.  Little did they know, it was a vagrant…searching for a place to deliver a pizza.

In John 12, we find a proverbial spotlight.  As Jesus enters Jerusalem, all attention is on him.  A crowd of up to 2 million people gather…wave palm branches, spread their cloaks in front of him and cry out “Hosanna! Praise him! Praise The King of Israel!”

All attention is on Jesus.  Shortly after this moment…in the same chapter…we find Jesus and God the Father in a verbal exchange…all about Glory!  It is an amazing scene…Jesus pointing to God the Father…and God the Father pointing to Christ!  The Triune God of the universe is pointing the spotlight of glory towards each other!

Glory is about revealing what is really at center stage…it is like a spotlight to draw our attention. 

May our focus be on Christ our Coming King this Palm Sunday…as we remember that triumphal entry…and the triumphal entry…yet to come!

Ice

I first started winter biking in December of 2013 on a mountain bike with 2” tires. On just my second ride, I was heading home on the recently plowed streets when my tiny tires slipped out from beneath the dark blue frame and threw me to the hard pavement.  My helmet bounced twice on the icy avenue, and I lay sprawled on the road not knowing what had just happened.  I heard some honking and a voice yelling, “Hey get off the road, you bum!” as a yellow school bus full of children passed and laughed at me.  I peeled myself off of the street like a slice of peanut butter toast from the kitchen floor and attempted to remount my bicycle.  I hadn’t realized that my seat had snapped off during the fall, leaving a sharp post protruding upward, until I attempted to settle into the saddle.  I quickly bounced back up with a “yeieiaah,” slipping from my breath.  I rode the rest of the way home…standing…without incident. 

This is not the only time that I have fallen on the ice.  I am sure you can relate…as I can’t imagine anyone growing up in the long, frozen winters of Minnesota without enduring a similar experience of falling on the ice. 

I recall falling on the ice while delivering a pizza in college…sacrificing my much younger body to save the pizza.  Nowadays…I’d forget the pizza and save myself. 

Some of the worst moments of ice catastrophe occur when I fall in front of my mother or my wife.  For inexplicable reasons, they find my near death experiences worthy of uncontrollable laughter. 

I spoke with an orthopedic surgeon at one time and asked him what created most of his patients.  He replied, “Ice…always ice.”…”Ice.”

When we fall on the ice, it happens so FAST! It is incredible! One moment I am standing...or riding my bike…or running…and the next…I am flat on the ground, sometimes on my back, sometimes on my face, and sometimes upside down.

I think that on the day that we come face to face with God Almighty and see Him in all of His glory…a similar experience will happen.  I think that when we see God…we will fall flat on our faces immediately…faster than a fall on the ice.  When we see His Holiness…we will not be able to stand…we will drop.  In fact, we see it evidenced in the Scriptures, Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1:28 and Revelation 5, (as well as others). In Revelation 5, we see angels and Godly people falling on their faces before, “He who sits on the throne and the Lamb!”

I don’t like falling on the ice…but honestly…I think that I am looking forward to falling on my face before God Almighty.  I know this…I am not even worthy to fall on my face before him…but He IS WORTHY…thus…on my face I will go.

May we come to see…and worship…the Holy God!

 

 I Held Her Down

 

My daughter was gasping for each breath that she took.  Her tiny, one year old body shook as her microscopic lungs pressed against the inside of her chest trying to draw in each fill of air. Her tears soaked the bed sheet as the nurses tended to her. My job was to hold her down and keep her hand still as the nurse took a 3 foot needle and poked her repeatedly trying to find a vein to service the intravenous tubing.  Hannah’s small raspy voice moaned to me, “Dada...” sob, sob, sob, “Dada…” Thus, I held her down, fighting my own watery eyes.

The children’s ICU unit is an intimidating space.  You watch as your, barely, toddler crawls around on a bed with high Plexiglas sides to keep her from falling…or crawling out.  There are wires on electrodes all over her to monitor her heart rate, temperature, blood pressure…hair color…vocal volume, among other options that I am surely unaware of.    

I stayed with my daughter for 3 straight days in the ICU.  Why me?...because my wife, Sarah, had just given birth to our son a few weeks prior…thus giving  her a free pass from doing anything but caring for the newborn.  I don’t think that she really understood how difficult it was to sleep in a chair for three nights…with your 1 year old constantly pulling off the colored wires from her chest saying, “Uh Oh…Brown.” It wasn’t long before I could have rewired her color coded electrodes in my sleep. My nights were pretty sleepless…hearing Hannah’s difficulty breathing and her incessant color identification.  I was kept awake by the heart monitor’s constant beeps and occasional alarms blaring when her beats per minute climbed too high.  On top of it all…the worn voice calling “Dada…Dada…Dada…” made it impossible to rest soundly.

Hannah and I spent the entirety of all three days binge watching the same 30 minute episode of Veggie Tales, “Rack, Shack and Benny,” (aka…”The Bunny” to the one year old…referencing the chocolate bunnies in the episode). Let’s see…7:00 a.m….until 9:00 p.m…30 minute intervals…3 days…that is A LOT of chocolate bunnies!

By the third night I was tired and exhausted.  I needed sleep…at least I needed some “good sleep” and the rocking chair was just not cutting it.  I rocked Hannah to sleep…and carefully set her back in her Plexiglas prison and tried to sneak into the waiting room to lie on a rock hard sofa.  Inevitably, she stirred as soon as I set her down.  Never the less…I stepped out to let her settle in to sleep on her own. I laid on a couch and fell asleep within 6 minutes…only to be awakened by a nurse 10 minutes later, saying, “I am sorry…but she is not settling down…her heart rate is spiking too high…I think you need to go be in with her.”

I stepped back in the room…reached my hand on to her hand…and gently held her down.  She quietly rasped, “Dada,” and went to sleep.  I didn’t.

The croup had hit her hard that year.  She doesn’t remember much of the ordeal…but I remember about everything.  What strikes me most, is that there was only one thing that she wanted…only one thing that she needed.  Her body would recover…she would heal with time, but to do that she needed to stay calm.  She had to relax, and the thing she needed the most to be able to do that…was me.  She only needed me to be near. 

We serve a God who is near.  Though Revelation 4:1-11 paints an amazing picture of God on his throne…he is a God who is NEAR!!!  He is all seeing, all knowing…and all present. He is worthy…of all power and glory and honor…and…HE IS NEAR!

May we find the nearness of God…and his power…and his glory…and his majesty…holding us secure.

 Fin

We currently have no living plants or fish in our home, though we have had both in our home from time to time…they both tend to fair poorly.  I take the blame entirely upon myself

I have shared about my murderous brown thumb in the past.  If the plant is green, I will turn it brown.  The saving grace to any of my plantitary (intentionally made up word, in which I claim all credit to its eventual inclusion into Webster’s fine work…of boosting children’s height at the dinner table) successes is when I can place the trees, shrubs or flowering bulbs into the ground and let God take care of the rest.  I remember in college when my mother gave me a “Devil’s Ivy,” an ironic name for a Bible College student, as a gift.  As she delivered the item to me, she instructed me in the proper care for the plant saying, “It is really hearty…it will liven up the apartment...and it is durable…if it doesn’t get the care that it needs it will likely still survive…it is really hard to kill.”

I killed it.

Sadly, pets have been another victim.  When our third child was born, I bought 5 goldfish…one for each member of the family.  Each family member named their own personal fish.  All 5 are dead, and have been so, since the first few months of purchase. 

Over this past year, it looked as if my luck might change! Last March, our oldest daughter “won” a goldfish. My first thought, as I set my eyes on the small innocent beast, was, “You poor thing.” We cared for the fish about as well as we have cared for any plant or fish in our home, changing its water every so often and feeding it when we would think of it.  I must give credit to this little aquatic creature, because he appeared to be more resilient than even my Devil’s Ivy.

Some mornings, I would awake to find the fish floating belly up! The next morning, I found him swimming around like he was as healthy as can be! Seriously!

If ever I have encountered an “overcomer”...this fish…was it.  Yet sadly, this overcoming and enduring fish, Fin was his name, has gone to be with everything else that goes down the toilet.  His endurance finally ran out, and he gave up trying about a week ago. 

But Jesus didn’t.  Jesus is THE Overcomer, and He calls us to overcome with Him.  In Revelation 3:7-22, we find Christ speaking to the final two of the seven churches of Revelation.  He gives the same encouragement to these two, which he has to the previous five.  Endure! Overome! I don’t know what you encounter and struggle with from week to week…but there are times when I feel that I am just done….flush me down the toilet and end my misery.  I can’t do it anymore.  Jesus knows that I can’t do it anymore.  That is why HE did it…and now He invites me to fellowship with Him so that I can overcome, endure, hang-on…because He is my strength.  Without Christ, we cannot overcome.  With Christ, we WILL overcome.