Who Sends the Rain?

Not for Sale

Job 38:27 Who sends the rain that satisfies the parched ground and makes the tender grass spring up?

I wait in the waiting room at my spine doctor's office. I pray that God would speak through the doctor’s words, that healing words would come. I pray that I would hear something new, something besides the word "no." The “no's” from my neck and back issues echo through my mind as the receptionist calls me back to see the doctor.  

My heart yearning for a “yes”, I sit quietly and wait while he examines my spine.  I then watch the "no" flow freely off the doctor’s tongue, as if it must be of God.  "No painting for a while," he says.  I swallow hard, but the words feel like sandpaper sliding down my throat.  I want to spit them out, but remember that the whale spit Jonah out exactly where He wanted him to go. 

And I remember that I have been hearing the word "rest”, and that like Jonah, I have not listened.  But now, the words of a doctor come confirming what God has already told me. But I can’t help but feel swallowed, have felt swallowed for years because I have a plan and God has a different one, and I am tired of praying from the belly of a whale.  Fifteen years of detours from my own silly plans, of praying from a dark belly that can feel lonely and unclean because it doesn’t feel this could be of Him.   The fifteen years of spine therapists and ice packs and quitting and starting over and hope and disappointment and seeking wisdom and waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

I want to ask why.  Why fifteen years of “no's” to the things I love, to the hobbies I enjoy, to the things you have given me a passion for? I tell a friend I want to ask, "Why?" She says, "Why not ask why?"  "Because Job questioned God and got an earful," I say, "and He has given me so much.  How dare I ask why?"  But just before bed, I bend my knees by my bedroom sofa and dare to ask why?

I climb in my bed and dream I am on my way to catch a plane.  An enemy takes me captive and puts me in a prison camp.  There are small one-room buildings lining a dirt sidewalk in the middle of a desert.  It is some sort of a medical camp, sterile and clean.  Somehow clean in the middle of a dusty, desolate wasteland.

My aunt and my mother are there, both of who struggle with similar spine problems.  They take my aunt back first.  I fear for her, don't know where they are taking her, but know I am next.   She enters one of the small rooms. They perform an abrasive procedure, one meant for evil, meant to cause pain...a scrubbing of the skin, a microdermabrasion of sorts.  But she comes out with porcelain white skin, more beautiful than before.  Cleaner and whiter and there is joy in her eyes. She senses her beauty.

The fear loses its grip on me in the dream. I don't feel fearful anymore of what my captor may do.  I feel more focused on the outcome, than on the possibility of pain. 

They come and take me, tell me that the electrodes are stronger in my room.  I feel fear again, but like my aunt, the pain only serves to make me more beautiful, only scrubs away what is dead so that the new skin can come forth. Only sloughs away that which is not needed. 

I wake. I think of the dream and am reminded that what Satan means for evil God means for good.   And what is skin but flesh?  The peeling away of flesh as he makes me new, as he sanctifies and scrubs away.  The doctor’s words sliding like sandpaper sloughing away my fleshly thinking, only serving to bring about something new.

As I write, I feel the claws creep up into my neck again...pulling down and twisting and turning.  The enemy always twisting. He wants to twist this truth, tell me he is winning, remind me he is stealing, but as the enemy steals, my Father scrubs and sloughs away and what Satan meant for evil, God will use for good.  Satan says, "Your neck can't paint and it can't write and God can't complete in you the work he began because of all my twisting and pulling..."

I break from writing, stretch my neck, pace myself to avoid the pain. I take a warm shower, feel the water running warm down my spine. I am reminded of the hemorrhaging woman and the blood that ran down for twelve years. 

A large crowd followed and pressed around him.  And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.  She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”  Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask,‘Who touched me?’ ”

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.  Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.  He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”  (Mark 5:24-34)

On a smaller scale, I know the isolation she felt, and I know how it feels to see the crowds of healthy people next to Jesus while I am stretching my arm to reach him because He has spent fifteen years stretching my faith. But as the hemorrhaging woman stretched to reach Jesus, it was into her that His power went. Twelve years of suffering and one day of healing but over two thousand years of God's people finding encouragement from her story.

Is that the waiting, Lord? Is there more to the story?  Are the sandpaper words more about my story than my suffering, more about your power than my pain?

I step out of the shower and hear the tornado sirens warning of a storm. The clouds are moving in quickly, and the rain is beginning to pour down. I am reminded that years ago you warned me of a storm. You said, Give way to the storm, like Paul gave way to the nor'easter on his way to Rome.

I remember the tornado years ago that ripped over one hundred trees out of the ground as I slept peacefully on the sofa in front of the living room window.  And Jesus slept through the storm on the boat. And Paul gave way to the storm on his way to Rome, his ship crashing on the shores of Malta where he told the people the good news of Jesus.  "I am taking you to Malta," God says.  "But I wanted to go to Rome," I say. “This isn’t my plan.”

My dog sits next to me shivering as the storm approaches, as the rain pours down. I know he is safe.  I wish he knew.  Wasted energy, all his panting and shaking.

My daughter rounds the corner, tells me I have mail in the paper mailbox we made for our bedroom doors. She has drawn a rainbow for me because God knew I needed one today. Always a rainbow when I start panting and shaking, when I forget how many times you have told me there is one at the end of the storm.

I dress and begin to prepare dinner.   Mary Helen rounds the corner and asks me what a homophone is, says she has to know for her homework. I cannot remember but Google tells me it’s two words that sound the same but have different meanings. Like I and eye.  And I wonder if the I's of my life keep me from seeing through my Savior's eyes, make me determined to write my own story.  The ‘I wants’ and ‘I had hoped's’ and ‘I never's’ and ‘I will not's’. And Pain and pane. Does the resentment of pain cause me to see through fogged up panes? Unclear what He is doing. Stabbing in the dark, it seems...Do his presents sit unopened when I forget about his presence? When I forget He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies, in the presence of my pain.

I hear Virginia's footsteps in the hall.  She has captured a roach and wants holes in the top of the Tupperware so he can breathe.  I poke holes while he scurries, the roach I wish she had crushed with her heel.  I wonder if I make holes for the enemy to breathe when I resist Malta? Father, do I give him breath when You have crushed him with your heel?  I hear Virginia say, "It's okay, little buddy.  I'm helping you out," and she runs to find grass to feed him.  Feeding the one I pay to exterminate.  And I feed the one Jesus paid to crush as I resist and resent.

Three-year-old Katie hugs my leg as I am getting water for the corn. She stands in front of me and says, "I am bigger than you," her head of curls barely at my hip. I kiss her, smile and ask God, "Is this what I do? Size up my suffering next to you?  Perceive it is bigger, taller than you in my childish way of seeing?"

Virginia wants a bunny nose and whiskers painted on her face to go with the ears she has crafted out of leaves. And she cries when I say no and starts to melt down.  "I'm trying to get dinner on," I say,  "The bunny face will have to wait."  But I understand why she stomps her foot and resists the sandpaper words. She had a plan, was in the middle of all her creating.  So I am trying to teach my children to swallow the "not right nows" but I'm struggling to do it myself.

I hear the doctor’s words echo in my mind again.   He says, “Your neck is too straight, has lost the curve over time that absorbs the impact.  “Why,” I ask?  He says, “Probably the result of an injury, a wound left untended, which over time can straighten a spine.”  Like the wounds in our hearts that are left untended. The kinds that hide deep in the spine of our souls.   The ones that make it harder to absorb the impact of life, that cause us to react in fleshly ways and we don't even know why, the roots are so deep.

He goes on to say, “Your muscles needs to be retrained.  You need to learn to engage the right muscles again, the ones that have been neglected because the wrong ones have compensated.” Like this mind needs to be renewed, retrained.  The thoughts I engage to protect, to compensate for pain, but in all the protecting, only leaving my spiritual muscles weaker, resentment and lies only drowning out the truths of God's love that bring wholeness and healing.   Lies from the one with the bow and the fiery arrows. 

My enemy may have a bow with arrows but I know my Father brings a bow after rain, and the enemy's bow pales in comparison to the size of Gods bow, to the size of God's promise.  And I see a curve in Gods bow, in his promise, and I need a curve in my neck and need to remember that God put curve in my heart when he gave me a new one.  A fleshy heart instead of a stone one.  A heart that can bend to God's plans, that will trust in God's bow instead of the words shot out of Satan's bow. 

Seems it is always the opposite in Gods economy. A softer heart is a stronger heart, a more bendable, pliable heart, one more able to weather the impact of the storm.

I place the pot of water on the stove as I listen to the rain pouring down, and the words God spoke to Job pour down heavy on my heart:

Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm.  He said: Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" Brace yourself like a man, I will question you and you shall answer me...

What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, for the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts the channel for the torrents of rain and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?

So your rain puts a halt to all of my labor, but it will satisfy the parched ground.  And the torrents of rain will slough and scrub and the dew will cleanse and in God's time, the grass will sprout, and the flowers will bloom...

Amen.

Love is Like a Dog to Me

Painting by five year old Virginia Brooks.

Spade sees us far off in the distance.  He is waiting to welcome us home, spinning, jumping, ears flopping in the driveway.  He seems to be dancing almost.  He delights in my return, in the return of my children.  I pull in the garage, and he runs to the car door to greet me, jumping up and down so that I can see him through the window.  Bursting with joy and excitement. 

I wonder why he continues the ritual because  it was just recently I even noticed his driveway dance.  Most of the time I am way more focused on what needs to get done than on receiving his love.  I just want to open my car door, get the children unbuckled, make sure they have remembered their backpacks and socks and shoes they have shed in the car.  I forget he is there as the list of to-dos start to run through my mind.  "When will we get homework done and who needs to be dropped off where and what will I make for dinner, and whose library books are due and who needs to practice math facts and who needs to do what chores?" 

My thoughts run away from Spade and all his dancing and delighting in me.  “I don’t have time to pet you right now,” I think, “and there is too much in my hands anyway, too much for me to carry to the house.”  He walks right in front of me, trips me as I walk toward the back door. I nudge him away with my foot, ask him to move out of the way.   “Why do you always have to stand in my path,”  I think to myself.  But he seems unphased by my nudging away, and continues to walk just in front of my feet.

Santa Claus brought Spade on his sleigh three years ago on a cold Christmas morning.  A seven month old because Santa knew that would be easier for Mom and Dad.  No trips to the restroom at three a.m. was the thought, already crate trained according to the trainer Santa got him from.  But Santa did not know that crate trained did not mean house trained, so in reality Santa dropped an untrained teenage dog down the chimney, said, "Ho ho ho" and drove out of sight.   

To introduce his awkward self, he leapt in the middle of our coffee table, all four legs flying in different directions, crosses, nativities, and books flying from the table.  Then he introduced himself to my mother the same way when we walked next door  to open our gifts.  And a few weeks later, I set the kitchen table for dinner complete with drinks and silverware just in time for Spade to run across the room, leap in the middle of the table, and run laps around it, sending drinks, placemats, and silverware soaring.  

Santa was also unaware that English Cockers need tons of affection and simply cannot stand to be alone.  Separation anxiety, they call it, which manifests itself through hours upon hours of clawing at doors if left outside for more than one minute. Santa must have forgotten that I had a six year old, a three year old, and a nine month old child, and who has love leftover for a dog when you are a mom of three?

We had asked Santa for an outside dog, something I could love when I wanted but one that would be content alone.  Instead, we received a needy want-to-be lap dog that still insists I walk him to his bathroom spot in the morning.  He will not leave the back door if I do not, and will spend the next few hours clawing the door, until someone finally gives in and lets him in. 

When I crouch to tie the children’s shoes, he wedges right in between us and begs for attention.  I push him back, but he wedges right back in, over and over, until I have to pin him to the ground just to get the children’s shoes tied.   When I paint, he lays on my feet, and when I write he lays under my desk.  When I get in the car, he sneaks in the door and jumps to the way-back seat and refuses to come out so that I have to climb over the seats and physically lift him out of the car.  When I attempt to let him out, he rolls over and lays on his back so that I have to drag him out the door by his collar.   And when I let him out one door, he figures out a way to get in another. And all these behaviors are simply because he cannot stand to be separated from me.  

But when my six-year-old comes home, he finally leaves my side to be with her.  She loves that dog with the same kind of never-ending, unconditional love that Spade showers on us.   Everywhere she goes, she make two quick clicks out of the side of her mouth and calls his name to invite him to come.    She delights in his presence, notices his every move, lays with him, snuggles with him, plays dress up with him, invites him to all her candid dance performances, feeds him, and if ever he scratches on the door, she lets him in, accepts his affection,  and delights in it.  

Recently, Virginia painted a painting of Spade, and when I asked her what scripture she would like to put on it, she thought about it for a minute and said, “Love is like a dog to me.” I told her I thought that was a beautiful phrase to add to her painting, so we stamped all the letters, glued a ribbon on the back and she hung it on the back door right above the plexiglass that now covers the door.  As we hung it, I noticed the grooves where Spade spent the first year of his life scratching at my back door, before we were forced to cover it.  And as I studied the grooves his paws had made, I was reminded of the words that Jesus spoke, “I stand at the door and knock,” and I realized Virginia’s words were not far from God’s truth, that love really is like a dog to me. 

The love of Jesus began to scratch at my heart as He whispered, I love you with a never-ending, never- stopping, never-giving-up kind of love.  I will never stop knocking at your door, even on the days when you are so focused on doing that you forget about the being.  Even the days, when you shove me away in the small shoe tying moments, because the clock is ticking and you forget it is I who made time and it is I who gave it to you.  Even on the days when you never notice my presence, when you forget I am with you as you paint and as you write and as you carpool and as you cook and in every little moment as you live. Even when your hands are too full to reach out and touch me because you forget it is I who brings you joy and that receiving my love will empty your arms.  

I love you even when you shove me out the door of your thoughts.  I tend to turn your life upside down, tend to get right in front of you when your hands are full, even let you stumble a bit, so that you will remember I am present.  I get in your way, alter your path, because I have a better one, one that involves laying down all that you carry so that you can kneel down to receive my love.   

Like Virginia, would you call my name and invite me to go wherever you go?  Would you delight in me like I delight in you?  Would you see me for who I am?  I am not someone that gets in your way.  I AM the way,  the only way. And my ways are not your ways.  I am not focused on your always running away.  I am delighting in your return.  Would you open your eyes and see the delight in mine, the deep love I feel for you. “Delight in me, and I will give you the desires of your heart." My yoke is easy and my burden is light because all I require of you is to receive my love, to keep coming home to me in repentance.

So Spade still waits in the driveway for me to come home, dancing and twirling and celebrating when he sees my van round the corner. He awaits my return like my Father awaiting his prodigal daughter.  And I took notice of  Spade yesterday, emptied my arms,  and bent down to receive the love he had to give.  And now I call him over by my chair at night and see in his eyes the love he has always had for me but I was too tired and busy and burdened to receive.   But a love is finally growing down deep in my heart for the dog who has loved me with a never-ending, always-pursuing, always-forgiving, never-leaving-even-though-you-leave-me kind of love. 

I once asked my husband if he thought Spade was the spawn of Satan sent to torture me in my child rearing years or if he thought Spade was a messenger from God sent to teach me patience.   I was never sure which in the early days,  but Virginia reminded me with a smile the other day that dog and God have all the same letters, and she was so proud of herself for figuring that out on her own.  So dog and God have the same letters and in the end, Spade was a letter to me.  A love letter dropped down my chimney from the God who loves me even more than the dog who is obsessed with me.  I could cry to think of the times I have ignored them both and the joy I have missed in receiving their love. 

So I return home, and I see the God spelled backwards far off in the distance, dancing and twirling, ready to shower me with his love.   So I smile now and delight in all his delighting in me, and I remember the words of my Virginia, “Love is like a dog to me.”  And as Spade celebrates my return in the driveway,  I am reminded that love is always waiting for me to come home…

Luke  15:20  But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him…