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I'm Back! After a long hiatus, I think I'm ready to write again. I've been inspired by the women of (In) Courage, kindred spirits--women who love God and write about His hand in their lives ,from the mundane to the marvelous. Thanks guys.

Firestarter

Fire needs three things to burn: air, fuel and heat. When you build a fire you have the air surrounding you, fuel usually in the form of paper and wood, and matches. For me, building a fire in the wood stove is a pretty easy process. I grab kindling and wood from the piles I have, pick up a piece of newspaper and strike a match.

The three components of a fire remind me of the Trinity. Its actually a pretty good analogy. Our God is a Triune God. He's not just Father, or Son or even Holy Spirit. Just like you can never have a fire if you don't have each part, God is all three and it takes each aspect to show us the One True God.

For fun I have matched up the three parts of a fire with the three parts of the Trinity.Its easy to align the Holy Spirit with fuel...The Holy Spirit is the dunamis, the power to live the walk we are called to. I have a much harder time with Jesus and the Father. I can compare Jesus with heat for He is the one who has made it possible to come into relationship with God just like I associate the match with the thing that starts the fire. Jesus' death and resurrection lit the flame of God fire in my life. So that leaves the Father as air... Air provides the right environment for fire to burn. A match put to wood in a vacumn would not light. God's perfect love, Jesus' spark and the Holy's Spirit's fuel. That's one way to see it. Even as I write this, though, I can sense that my associations are imperfect. I can see each person of the trinity in a different role too. Perhaps that is why the Trinity is such a mystery to us...Distinct features or flavors to each part, yet each such an integral part of the other so that they can't really be divided. Even so, a fire, when is is burning can not at that moment be divided into its three parts or it would cease being a fire.

It Only Takes a Spark

Yesterday at the preschool we had a fireman come and visit with the kids. He asked them, "Is fire good or bad?" Some children said good and some said it was bad. His answer was that it is both. Fire gives us heat to cook our food and and warm us up . It can also provide us with light and protect us from wild animals. But if a fire is burning our clothes or our house, it's bad. Fire is dangerous and must be handled with respect and care.

Scripture contains numerous references connecting God and fire. The first one that pops into my mind is the verse from Hebrews 12: 29--"Our God is a consuming fire" My bible had a cross reference from Hebrews to Exodus 24:17 where it talked about the glory of the Lord resting upon Mt Sinai ."The glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel." I also think about how the Children of Israel were commanded to keep a lamp burning continually in the temple. These and other verses give me confidence that fire is important symbolically and / or metaphorically to God, as well as a physical gift He has given us.

As i explore and try to describe what I have learned from and about fires I know that God has a lot more to reveal to me in the process of writing them down. Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Fire

I love fires. Like many people, I am constantly interested in and attracted to fires. Not sure why we humans have such a response to them, but when I watch a fire I think about a lot of things.

We use the wood stove as our primary heat source during the cold season, any where from September to May. It does a good job of heating the great room(kitchen, dining, living, den) and getting it warm and toasty. It draws us together, for its much nicer to be out near the fire than tucked away in a cold bedroom. The dog has staked out his spot too. He loves to be right smack dab in front of the wood stove. He will eschew his dog bed to lie down on the bare wood floor next to the fire.

A steadily burning fire is attractive in many ways. For one, it's visually appealing--I can sit and watch the flames dancing up and around a piece of wood for a long time. A couple of nights ago I watched a fire where the flames burned red and orange and then died down and a wave of blue flame rose up at the back of the stove for just an instant and then the basic red and orange flames were back. It was unusual and beautiful and it continued in that manner for while. I don't know how long, I had to stop watching and go do something else.

God used a fire to attract Moses in the desert, a beautiful and unusual fire, an eternal flame, for the bush burned, but was not consumed.Once he had Moses' attention, then He spoke to him. And God speaks through fires to me too. They are a constant parable to me. I have been building fires in my wood stove or my back yard for the last 13 years and they almost always speak to me about relationships--personal or communal.

That night as I sat on my knees and watched the shifting flame, that's when I knew... I had my next topic. I have felt dry as far as topics for a while, but now I am going write about fires and what they tell me.

The Selfish Rosebush

Its amazing how self centered, selfish one can be with out even realizing it. No wonder Jesus tells us we need to die to our self daily. I think that self part of me wakes up before the rest of me does sometimes. I remember , when I first got married thinking that I had no idea how selfish I was. I was so used to being in charge of my life and stuff that to begin to constantly take another person's concerns, needs, and wants in to consideration about everything was a huge challenge. And of course, my needs were more important than his because they were mine. So silly. But we labored at it and found our way to a give and take that worked for us.

Except for I don't know if anything has changed in me. So many days I still feel the same way, my needs are the important ones here, not anybody else's. When my kids were little I didn't concern myself so much with my needs. What I wanted to to make sure that the kids were well taken care of. So when I did that I got what I wanted and so did they. Now I don't have four kids wanting things. I only have one living at home and he's pretty self sufficient. Food and laundry is about all he needs from me, and sometimes not even the food part of it...

I see a progression here and its not good. I think that I have succummed to a wrong way of thinking. It goes like this...When we first got married it was all about him and building a good marriage. Then I got pretty good at that( or so I thought). Next we had kids and it was all about taking care of the kids and I got pretty good at that too. Now with one pretty self sufficient kid at home its time for me and all of the things I sacrificed to get here. Or so I realized that I have been thinking.And unfortunately I'm pretty good at this me first stuff.

Now God's been talking to me about this for a while..pointing out my growing meism. And I have been acknowledging that He's right, but not really doing much about it, because it's my time doncha see!

Roses have been symbolic to me for a long time. They are a constant source of His teaching me--my personal parable if you will. Some time a rosebush will produce a branch that is thick and vigorous and full of leaves. But it never flowers. It just drains life from the other branches. These branches need to be pruned all the way down to the root.There is very little fruit in my life right now. And the gardener is coming. He's got his clippers out and I know that a lot of branches that I have been feeding are going to get pruned right off. So I might be kind of scraggley looking for a while, but He knows just how to get beautiful roses out of my life.

Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away: and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit(roses! ) John 15:2

Basketball blues

You wanna know something difficult to do? Be a classy sports fan .Sounds almost like an oxy moron right? What does a classy fan look like? Well... You root for your team. Support the kids and encourage them. Recognize when they make a good play.I think that good fans can help make the game fun for the players A classy fan is positive,has self control and perspective It's the kind of fan I want to be.

Why is it so hard to be a classy fan? One area where I often struggle is reacting to the refereeing. Many of the calls a ref makes are subjective and often a call really impacts the flow of the game. For example, in last night's game my team got called on three offensive fouls as different players drove hard to the basket. Each time, the shot went in but the basket was waved off. None of those boys drove hard to the basket like that again during the game. Were they offensive fouls? I didn't think so . It felt so unfair. What is the best response to something like that? Yelling at the ref might momentarily make me feel better, but its not what I want to be know for.

Another difficulty..some teams just get my goat before they even take a shot. I don't know what it is but the attitude or spirit that emanates from some teams is classless. Everything feels "in your face". Our school plays this one team where some of the visiting parents sit in the home team section. What's up with that? It feels antagonistic to me. It's hard not to get drawn down to a lesser way of cheering, and to start rooting against the other team and the other parents. To tease and to taunt. But I don't really want to be that kind of fan.

It's funny to me how much God uses sports events to mould and shape my character even when I am only a fan. I am convinced that 99.99% of the time the Lord is completely unconcerned with who wins and loses. That He is hands off and allows things to unfold according to all the choices each person playing or reffing has made. So whether my team wins or loses He uses that in me for my good, honing and shaping me more into the image of Jesus. And when I step away from the sporting events and look at my life, what I really want is to be pleasing to God, to be a sweet smelling aroma.

Now that's an oxymoron--what I really want is to to give up what I want and do whatever pleases Him

"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us , and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us..."Hebrews 12: 1b

Christmas reflections: part 1

So today I am finally taking down the Christmas tree. Undecorating it. Sometimes I'm in more of a hurry to do it than other times. I like to work on it while something else is going on too, like during bowl season when football games are on. But this year since its late, its just me, doing it it little by little. This year's tree was a really pretty one, beautifully proportioned, wonderfully decorated, shapely, colorful. We loved it. Everyone in the family commented on how perfect it was.Yet, it is time for it to go. I don't mind taking it down. I think that I am better at doing that--getting the boxes out,putting things away and packing up, than I am at decorating. I have been enjoying finding the pieces that the boxes tell me they need, thinking back to when and where we got this or that ornament. Reflecting, reminising and tidying up. It's very satisfying.
I have good memories of this Christmas. and I'm ok with moving on. We worked hard to make it a joyful time of celebration, family and friends.Was it a perfect Christmas? No, the snow and ice made things difficult and cut into our time together. But we were together, all of us. We were all healthly, had plenty to eat, and a warm house. And we are all richer because of it. I don't mean monetarily, or with stuff, even though we all got lots of stuff. Being together, celebrating together, enlarged us, changed us, and sometimes cut us as tempers flaired and arguements ensued.
No, not a perfect Christmas, but the one God gave us. The one He hand picked for us to have. I know that lots of Christians make a big deal about how the best gift ever given was Jesus. I agree with that. Jesus is a gift like no other. but it seems like sometimes we gyp ourselves and others by thinking that it was a one time deal and the only gift. God is a gift giver. All the time. He thinks about what is good for us and then goes and gives it to us. A lot of the time we miss it. I know that I certainly do, or I revile and reject the gift because it's not what I wanted.But God gives us Christmas every year, an excuse to celebrate. I can't think of any other religion where the adherents are commanded to have parties, to sing and dance and rejoice. And even as I take down the tree, I know that Christmas will come again, very soon. And I will have another opportunity to remember the nativity story, to sing the carols, to shop for gifts and decorations and celebrate all over again.