Harbingers

I saw this Monarch butterfly a few days ago and a friend reminded me that these butterflies are harbingers – they announce the coming of a new season.  A new season of cooler weather, orange and yellow leaves, school supplies, pumpkin spice lattes, and long sleeves.  There is still a full month of summer, but fall is on its way.  It comes every year and although some years it stays warm slightly later or gets cold slightly earlier, it always comes.  

Once you’ve lived for a while, you realize that life has seasons.  They don’t trace nature’s seasons.  They don’t always come at predictable times.  You often don’t know what to expect.  They don’t seem to repeat regularly.  But they always come.  And like nature’s seasons, they too are preceded by harbingers, delicate announcers of a new season.  Sometimes we see them.  Sometimes we don’t.  

I have been in a season characterized by death to self, uprooting, tearing down, weeping, letting go, searching, throwing away, tearing, silence, and war.  At times, I have begged God to bring a new season, to make this one end.  This season has been so hard, but so defining.  Never in my life have I faced so many of the deep hurts scarring my heart.  Never has a light exposed so fully my darkness.  Never have I held my hands as open and been more sincere in asking God to take my life, all of it, for his purposes. 

Have you ever noticed (maybe only in retrospect) that suddenly, metaphorical Monarch butterflies are all around you -- underfoot, peppering your path, and rising on arriving air currents?   You know what I mean.  New people, open doors, personal insights.  Sometimes they are warnings, sometimes signs of hope.  A few weeks ago, maybe a month, I began to notice harbingers of a new season.  A new season is coming.  Who knows what it will be.  I pray it will be a season of healing, building, laughing, dancing, embracing, mending, speaking, and loving.  But whatever it is, I am surrendered and given over because I am convinced to my toes that God has made everything beautiful in its time.  

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Beloved

Last night I was reflecting on the undeniable reality that my daughter turns 12 years old today.  After getting over what that means about how old I’m getting, I started to think about how with each passing birthday, we either get further away or closer to the person God made us to be.  As we get older, more things in the world pull us and tempt us.  Although with each passing year we become more able to take care of ourselves physically and emotionally, we become more vulnerable spiritually, more susceptible to buying into the notion that we must earn the right to be loved and valued.  Maybe this is what Jesus was getting at when he said: “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  (Luke 18:17)  As I consider this little girl God has entrusted to my care, I am acutely aware that with every birthday, she is more capable of taking care of herself and yet more vulnerable, because of the messages she will receive from this world, to becoming convinced that who she is depends upon what she can accomplish and how she looks.  And so, I wrote her this letter to remind her of the truth about who she is in the hope that she would get it today, but even more so that she can remind herself whenever she needs to.  It turns out that this letter was as much to me as it was to her.

June 27, 2012

Dear my sweet love, Jamie,

Tomorrow you turn 12 and this year I decided to write you this letter.  I love you so much, more than you could ever possibly know or understand.  I love who you are and who you’re becoming.  You are so important to me and I am so proud of you.  You have a curious, loving, and lively spirit.  You are beautiful.  I love that you love to read, that you know every line ever spoken on Friends, and that the truth is central to you and your relationships with others.  Every time you smile or laugh, my heart leaps with love for you and every time I see you go, my heart leaps for the experiences you might have without me.  You are such a compassionate friend and a wise soul.  You have a creative spirit that allows you to write, and act, and dream.    

I want you to remember something:  God made you this way and he loves you even more than I ever could.  You are his beloved.  You are precious in his eyes and he knew and loved you before I ever did.   I want you to remember as you grow up that God holds you close through every moment of your life.  He thinks about you and knows everything about you, all that is on the inside, and all that is on the outside.  He loves the way you laugh, the way you love your friends.  He loves the way you love your brothers.  He loves that you are so compassionate and empathetic to everyone you know.  He loves that you forgive, even when it would not make sense to anyone else that you would.  He made you just this way.  And when you are all these things, you are fulfilling who he made you to be. 

I have told you this before, but I really believe it: God has a special plan for you and he will use you in ways you can’t even fathom.  He is preparing you for this plan.  He will work everything you experience in your life for your good because you love him.  And no experience, no person, no choice you ever make can separate you from his love.   As you grow up, you will notice that choices get harder and temptations get stronger.  We have talked about how hard it is to follow Jesus in our world because everything we see and hear wants to pull us away from him.  When this happens, cling to love and to what is good.  If you do this, you will always find your way back to who you are.  Jesus will strengthen you when you feel too weak; he will whisper to you the way to go when you feel lost; he will encourage you when you feel sad.  Even when you are alone or scared, he is there and you are never beyond his reach.   Even when you make poor decisions or the biggest mistakes, he will never withdraw his love or leave you.  

You can always talk to me about anything in your heart, any feelings you have, any doubts or fears.  You can tell me when you’re angry and when you’re struggling.  You can ask me any question.  You can always tell me about your smallest or biggest triumphs and disappointments.  I will walk with you through them all.

I pray for you every single day and always will.  My prayer is that you will flourish in your love for God and for others.  I pray that you will remain rooted in Christ and his love for you.  I pray that you will feel his presence and love every moment and it will bring you immeasurable joy, so much that you will want to dance!  I pray that you will remember God’s grace and mercy when you are hard on yourself or make a mistake.  I pray that you will not worry or be anxious, but that you will pray and ask God for help and for peace.  I pray that you will remember to thank God for the way he has blessed you and given you good things.  I pray that you will stand firm when tested and be still when you need to.  I pray that you will give your money, your time, and your gifts to the poor.  Most of all, I pray that you will feel the freedom that Jesus has given you through what he did on the cross and that nothing will hold you back from the wonderful, amazing plans he has for your life!  

My sweet love, I love you.

Mom

Jesus And The Rules Of Evidence

There is a story in the Bible about a time when the religious leaders of Jesus’s day confronted him with questions as to why, contrary to the religious tradition of the time, Jesus’s disciples ate before ceremonially cleaning their hands.  In response, Jesus said, among other things: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them.  For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.  All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”  (Mark 7:20-23)  

I have never fully understood this story until I began preparing for a trial recently.  Odd, I know.  But, I was considering whether certain evidence would be admissible at trial or not and had to analyze this evidence under the hearsay rule.  Hearsay is any statement made outside of court, and is generally not admissible at trial, with certain exceptions, because it is inherently unreliable.  For example, if I go to court and seek to testify about what my friend Joe told me as to whether the traffic light I went through was red or green, this testimony would not be permitted.  Joe can testify about what he saw, but I cannot testify about what Joe told me he saw.  Similarly, if, just after I ran a red light, I said to Joe: “The light was green,” I cannot testify about that either.  That is hearsay – an out-of-court statement.  You can see why this is the rule.  After all, if I’m on the stand and could bolster my case by saying: “Well, right after the accident, I told Joe the light was green, and therefore the light must have been green,” I would have a motive to lie. 

There are exceptions to this hearsay rule, though, for certain types of hearsay evidence that has the mark of reliability and can be trusted.  One of these exceptions is the “excited utterance” exception.  Under the excited utterance exception, a statement relating to a startling event or condition, made while the person testifying in court was under the stress of excitement that it caused, is admissible.  Such statements are considered inherently reliable – in other words, when we yell something in the midst of some stressful or startling event, it is likely to be true. Accordingly, such statements would be admissible.  In our example above, let’s say I had been driving with Joe, drove through the light in question, and just before a car side-swiped me, I yelled out: “My light was green!” That statement could be admissible under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule.     

Thoughts of the excited utterance exception led me to remember riding in a van almost three years ago with a group of people from Ndola, Zambia to Lusaka, Zambia.  A now dear friend of mine, Lawrence, was driving us along a two-lane road and we were probably going 65-70 miles an hour.  Frequently, we would come upon cars or trucks carrying large objects, or people, or animals that were going slower, so we would go into the oncoming traffic lane and pass that particular vehicle. This happened on the other side too. Constantly, we were heading straight for another car that was passing.  At one point, a car using our lane to pass cut it too close and was heading right for us.  It didn’t appear that the car would get back to its side of the road in time and it would hit us head-on.  The car got closer and closer and was not getting over to the other lane.  I clenched my body and my heart began to race.  Lawrence yelled out: “Father in heaven, save us!”  The other car swerved back into its lane just in time and we were safe.  

I have not forgotten this experience.  Not because it scared me so much (which it did), but because of what Lawrence yelled out at this time of incredible stress.  His words revealed something remarkable about him that I could not and did not grasp in the moment.  The words he used were not the words that came to my mind first and nearly found their way out, as the car headed toward us.  You know exactly what I mean.  

And now I not only get what Jesus meant, but I get why there is an excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule.  What comes out of us, particularly in such stressful, startling moments, reveals the inherent truth about the condition of our hearts.  Indeed, what comes outside in these moments is a trustworthy reflection of the state of things on the inside.  We don’t have the presence of mind to pretty ourselves up, straighten our shirt collars, and present ourselves for inspection.  What we see of ourselves in such times should remind us of what God sees and seeks to transform – the inside, where the evil and sin live.  Imagine.  

The next time a car is heading straight for me, I want to cry, in the midst of my stress: “Father in heaven, save me!”  And so I pray, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”  (Ps 51:10)