Fallen Family

Fall we did. Not Sherry, and not I, but another Branch — the one in front of our house.

The vultures quickly gathered. Before I pulled on my shoes to go out, three different neighbors were on the scene. “We saw it happen,” they said. What kind of world do we live in, where people watch the violence but do not intervene? Streets are no longer safe for timber, it seems.

One neighbor claimed the remains for cremation. Another offered a small chainsaw. Yet another helped clear the carcass out of the street, lest my dear Branch be dishonored by the approach of oblivious vehicles.

Neighbors helping neighbors. Death brings us together.

Snow here today — a record breaking snow for us. This morning I dropped Sherry at work. While there wasn’t all that much snow down yet, it was definitely slushy and slippery.

After I dropped her off, I got a text message with this picture. “Look what you left me in the parking lot,” she said. Sure enough, my car tracks left an early valentine. Could I do it again? Probably not. I have no idea how it happened. Some people might say it was a miracle — the kind of thing they show on Miracle Pets, or Touched by an Angel.

It’s a miracle, all right. But it’s not the hearts carved out of parking lot slush. The miracle is the love that makes the heart-picture possible. The miracle is that Sherry and I found each other again eight years after I graduated from high school. The miracle is that self-centered people can love at all.

It’s been a miracle for us since 1981. It’s been the handiwork of God since time began.

As soon as I get this item posted, I’ll be scouting the Internet for potential jobs. From what I read I won’t be alone.

It’s odd; for years we’ve routinely interacted with customer service people, repair people, and other gainfully employed people — the people who make life tick for us at the gas station, the bank, the laundry — and thought nothing of it. Now I wonder if other unemployed people who transact their business with these same employees have the same thought I do: “He has a job. She has a job.”

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been pondering, “How does God look at work?” What does the Bible say about work — not just the verses that tell us about working hard, or using work to provide for our families, but what’s God’s big plan for work? He made it; He must have a plan for it.

The outcome is this paper on the Theology of Work. Also, here’s a List of Verses the paper cites. It helped me. Maybe it will answer some questions for you, as well.

Included:

I. What is God telling us about Himself through “work?”
II. How can we reflect God’s creative/redemptive work in our own work?
III. How does God use our work in daily life?
IV. What does the Bible tell us about how God views man’s daily work?
V. FAQ
- Is “work” (daily work in the marketplace) real ministry?
- Is household work part of the equation?
- What about work for women?
- How do I respond to ungodly employers? Employees?
- Must work be physical – of our hands – to be real work?
- What role do trade unions have?
- What if I cannot find work?

Sherry just alerted me to the fact that there’s a cardinal in the back yard. I went to look. I watched for a few moments. He was interesting. Then the thought that came to mind was this: “Old people watch birds in the back yard. Your are watching a bird. Therefore….”

What an odd thought.

Is it a bad thing? Watching birds and the like, I mean.

Yes, if that’s all we do. We are participants in life, not spectators.

But no, if it means we actually slow down enough to see things we were too busy to see before.

Old people lose their vision and wear glasses. But they also see things that others don’t.

Not that I’m old. I’m just thinking about it.

My daughter looked radiant in her wedding gown.

Her heart was beating furiously. So nervous. So full of joyful anticipation. So anxious about the unknown.

My heart matched hers, as we stood arm-in-arm in the foyer of the church, staring at the double doors that would open in just 5 seconds… How did 25 years pass so quickly?

4 seconds… I remembered her in pink footy pajamas.

3 seconds… I remembered her at camp.

2 seconds… I remembered our date nights.

1 seconds… I remembered her moving out and getting her first job.

0… Now! The doors swung open, and every eye in the church turned toward us. The bride stepped forward, “entering God’s gate with thanksgiving, His courts with praise.” In just a few moments, I presented her to her groom, with whom she will spend the rest of her life.

Even then, it reminded me that each believer in Christ is standing right where my daughter and I stood last week. We are in the foyer of this life, walking arm in arm with God. At any moment, He may cause the doors to swing open that lead us into the perfect heavenly presence of Christ – who is our bridegroom.

I wonder, does my heart beat as furiously for that heavenly moment as it did in the foyer last week? Am I as full of joyful anticipation for the moment when God will usher me from this life into the life that weds us?

Am I remembering that the moment will be just as real (perhaps even moreso) as the rush my daughter and I felt when those doors were flung open for her?

The bridegroom awaits more eagerly than I can imagine. But may my imaginings and longing be more befitting of a bride whose bridegroom stands but one door away.

“Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” Revelation 21:9

My status last Wednesday: “Sitting in the prayer room at our old house for the last time.”

We signed final papers selling that house last week, and I couldn’t help but spend some quiet time in the living room, where the Lord and I spent many early mornings together.

Through various trials, tribulations and triumphs, God drew me closer to Him there than I’d ever been. We talked in earnest together. He calmed my soul. He stirred me up. He heard my cries. He answered my prayers. He shared His Word.

I lay on the couch and watched the limbs of the trees outside reach toward heaven. I lay on the rug and considered God’s mercy on my unworthiness. I wept. I laughed. I pondered.

We spent 19 years together in that house, God and I.

Now, with the kids grown and living on their own, Sherry and I have moved. Faithfully, the Lord sold our old house, closing exactly 60 days from when we listed it.

That morning, in the prayer room (living room) of the old place, I remembered how often God’s followers marked their journeys with an altar. Abram did it. So did Noah. Jacob. So many others.

Each altar marked an important passage. Moses built an altar to mark God’s faithfulness in defending His people from Amalek. Later the Israelites took 12 stones from the Jordan to mark their crossing into the Promised Land.

Like the patriarchs, I built an altar that morning.

Not a physical altar, of course, but one from the heart. One that marks and celebrates the changes God wrought in my deepest parts while I lived in that neighborhood… while Sherry and I grew through three different churches… while our children challenged us with their journey from childhood to adulthood.

Am I different than the year we moved into that house? Oh, so very different. So very much better, but still so very far from what I should be.

For the patriarchs, altars were a way to say, “You did it, God! Not me, but you!” It was also their way to say, “I trust you for the next thing.”

So I say with my altar… and with the patriarchs, I pack up my tent so the long Journey with Christ can continue until at last I reach home.

Ever heard of the Arp Award? No reason you should. But I won it.

(Note: I am deeply double-minded about posting this item. I hate boastfulness, and this seems boastful. But I do have a point to make, and this event makes it well. So I’m counting on you to understand.)

The Arp Award is the highest honor bestowed by the Texas Nursery & Landscape Association. It was created when Arp Nursery donated a silver bowl to be passed down annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the nursery/landscape industry. “These individuals exemplify the Association’s ideals: innovation, service, and highly ethical behavior in both business and personal lives.”

I join every past recipient I know in saying, “Who? Me? You’re kidding.” But for some reason, a “special nominating committee” has selected one person nearly every year since 1942. (My grandfather received it exactly 60 years ago.) This year they selected me.

Here are some things I find significant about this award:

1. You can’t buy it, because it’s not for sale. If you try to buy it, you immediately disqualify yourself because you’ve betrayed one of the association’s stated ideals.

2. You can’t campaign for it. It’s not like an office or position that’s won by politics.

3. You can’t earn it. This is hardest to comprehend. This is not like a Boy Scout merit badge, where the requirements are tangibly spelled out. Instead, you are chosen.

4. Yet… it is greatly desired.

The point? It reminds me of God’s merciful gift of redemption through Jesus Christ:

1. You can’t buy it. If the richest man in the world gave everything he had to wonderful charitable causes — perhaps even the church — it would not buy him a place of fellowship with God. The gifts God desires are from those who lay up riches in heaven.

2. You can’t campaign for it in your own will. Kiss up to anybody you like — even international church leaders or evangelists — and your attempts to make your own way to heaven will fall short on the day that votes are counted. The pleas that God desires are not to men, but to Himself.

3. You can’t earn it, though the requirements for salvation are actually spelled out quite distinctly. “Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.” Do it from birth to death, every waking and sleeping moment of the day. It’s impossible. Only Jesus Christ has ever done such a thing.

4. Yet… it is greatly desired. So how does one receive it? By turning to the only who has ever earned it, Jesus; by confessing our own lack of lived-out love for God; by turning to Christ to intercede with the Father for our sinfulness; and by walking with Him the rest of our lives.

When the Arp Award is presented, everyone there is invited to drink a toast from what has been poured into it.

When Christ was presented for sacrifice, He invited His disciples to drink deeply as well. “In the same way also [Jesus] took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:25-26) Even today, He invites to drink Him in.

Am I boastful? Perhaps a little. But I pray the boasting has been directed correctly. “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 10:17) To Him be the glory.

Theology of Heart from Mothlight Creative on Vimeo.

Today Sherry and Rebecca are in the den cutting out fabric for a maternity dress. Yes, the little girl who was not married the last time I posted is now married and expecting.

The den where they are working is in our new house. Yes, we have moved since the wedding. Downsized, by half. Boxes abound, both here and in the storage units that serve as a halfway house for some of our belongings. The new yard takes 2.5 times longer to mow than the old one.

The old house is still on the market. One offer and counteroffer, then another counteroffer. The deal died. Then they counteroffered again. A signed contract. They backed out. We’ll see who the Lord sends next, perhaps from the open house tomorrow.

Big progress on Kim’s wedding plans. Aug. 29 approaches quickly!

Son Paul and wife Liz (also expecting) are scheduled to close on a house on our side of town at the end of July.

Son Terence and wife Becky (also expecting) hope to reposition themselves in the nearer (and cheaper) side of the Metroplex when their lease is up later this year.

That’s it. All that’s happened in two months. I might have posted more often, but the Internet lived at our old house for two weeks before we got it all moved here. Or maybe that’s just an excuse.

Thanks for your prayers, by which God is encountered and glorified and we are encouraged.

Monday was Terence’s brithday. By tradition we serve waffles, with a candle in the Birthday Boy’s. For some reason we didn’t. Change.

Tuesday Terence and Becky moved out of our house to an apartment north of Dallas. Two empty rooms in our house, two empty parking places in the driveway. We also moved out most of Rebecca’s furniture to the house where she and Joel will live. Change.

Wednesday we moved Rebecca’s piano. Is it the music leaving our house, or just the tune we’re used to? Change.

Thursday Sherry packed up the sewing machine and sergers. The wedding sewing is done. We need the table space for Friday’s rehearsal dinner. I planted flowers in the front of the house. Change.

It’s Friday, and the house is still littered with decorations for the wedding and reception. By afternoon they will be gone, replaced by the programs still churning off the computer. Change.

Saturday will come, God willing. At 2:00 p.m., our littlest daughter will have a new name, a new identity. Change.

Sunday will come, God willing. We will thank Him that He changes us — but that He never changes.

It sounds so simple. Why is change so hard?