A Beautiful Broken Heart

It’s a beautiful thing for us to have our hearts broken over the things that touch God our Father’s heart.

Not too long ago I was browsing the internet looking again for a recording of some music we heard in Russia in 2008. The day before we finally picked our little boys up from the Baby Home, we were with them for an afternoon visit. Their caregivers let us take them outside to play while all the other children were inside getting ready for their naps. It was a warm day in June and the boys had been riding little plastic scooters around on the bumpy asphalt that surrounded the orphanage. They must have decided that their usual route down the sloped sidewalk toward the building was getting boring, so they took their scooters over to the empty play area for the toddlers. There was a very large wooden playpen near the sunny side of the building and next to an open window.

They thought it would be a good idea to put their scooters inside the playpen, and then they proceeded to climb inside as well, driving their scooters around in that little 4x4 play yard. We assumed we were watching them get away with something they ordinarily wouldn’t be allowed to do, and we were about to try to get them and their toys out before someone saw what they were doing. But then one of their “mama’s” inside that open window saw them coming to play, so she placed a cd player in the window and turned on some music. The boys instantly stopped what they were doing, and sat on their scooters, transfixed as they listened. Then they started to sing along. I have never been so glad to have had the video camera on and running while all of this was happening, because I can’t describe how beautiful the moment was. I knew as I watched this little scene unfold that it would be one of the memories of Russia that would be seared into my soul (there were a few of those!).

The music, we found out, was of a Russian children’s choir singing the songs of Chebrurashka (a favorite Russian children’s character). It was so very beautiful – so haunting, the way Russian music is, and the boys sang so innocently, so purely. It didn’t send them into a wild, dancing frenzy, or bring out their “air” guitars, or cause them to start clowning around. It was just a moment of perfectly sweet childhood and there were a thousand thoughts for us to think in that moment… So, since we’ve been home I’ve been on a quest to find that elusive music, which brings us to tonight.  

I found it, in all places, on YouTube. There were a number of black & white video recordings from 1973 of the Russian “Big Children’s Choir” singing the very songs we were looking for. So as I sat on my bed perusing through my music choices our girls were walking past in the hallway and the unusual sound brought them in to see what I was doing. We all sat there watching these vintage episodes that must have run on USSR television. Kind of surreal. Our oldest, 14, started singing along with one of the songs in English, as we have an English-dubbed Chebrurashka video at home. The girls left after a few minutes to go get ready for bed and I kept searching for more songs. Then she came back in the room. “I don’t like that music.” She was very focused on my face as she said it. “Why not?”  “I just don’t like it.” She kept her eyes on me. I was confused. She loved the boys’ Russian videos, their Russian music, and I knew she liked Chebrurashka. What’s going on here?? I also knew that look on her face, but I couldn’t quite figure this one out. “Help me out here a little, sweetheart. What’s the matter?” “I just don’t like that music!” More intense staring. “I don’t do anything!”  What?! Then the tears started to come. I pulled her over to me. She said, “I can’t do anything about those children! They’re trapped! They are locked up in an orphanage and no one knows, nobody cares, and I’m too young to do anything about it!” She started to sob. Oh, Jesus. Be near.

Precious daughter, God will use you. Your heart has been broken and that makes you tender and ready to be shaped in His hands. I want you to be used by God, even if that means “losing” you to some mission field on the other side of the world. Have your heart broken, over and over again, because those children who are locked up, forgotten by the world, have a Good Shepherd whose heart is broken for them. Go get them! Bring them the message of a Savior who loves them (and then bring them home).

I hope she dreams about Russian children tonight. I hope I do too.

Standing

I've had an opportunity recently to evaluate my convictions. Really, that's a nice way of trying to avoid describing the situation that lead me to evaluating my convictions. Both Dennis and I were a little blind-sided by the whole thing. Once the "situation" passed, we had a long drive home with lots of time to replay it in our heads. I was trying to sort it out. Sometimes I don't know how I feel about a "situation" immediately. I knew I didn't like how it made me feel, but the rest of it was still shockingly blurry. It wasn't right, I knew that too. Actually, it made me mad. It's one thing to have a "situation" with unbelievers, non-Christians. We don't expect a transformed life from someone who doesn't know Christ. But from people who claim to know Him? Actually, maybe I was sad. Sad that some people are still living in bondage and don't even know it. Sad that they will never know much of the joy that Jesus wants them to experience. Sad that it might separate us here on earth.

Five hours later I was still evaluating. It looked more like stewing, actually. It definitely smelled of stew. It was 11:09pm and I wasn't sleeping. That's no time to make stew. I was wrestling with God too, because I knew I should somehow let it go. But it was righteous indignation! On and on it went, sometimes unrighteously, to be sure. Then I realized that there was a song in the background noise of my brain. It was a hymn. Hmm. That sounds familiar... oh yes. We sang it in church that morning.

     Jesus my Lord will love me forever, From Him no power of evil can sever, He gave His life to ransom my soul, Now I belong to Him; Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me, Not for the years of time alone, but for eternity.

Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me, reminding me that it was Him alone I should be living for. That "...anyone who loves father and mother (or fill-in-the-blank) more than me is not worthy of me..."  He reminded me that "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

Dennis hadn't gone to bed yet so I came downstairs to talk to him. He was farther down the road of forgiveness than I was, and it was calming to work through it with him. At least things like this tend to unify us. We feel fortified in our endeavor to lead our family toward Christ.

I wish it was only the world that presented challenges in our daily following of Jesus. It shouldn't be others in the family of God, but many times it is. Either way, we wouldn't need convictions if everyone in the world agreed with us. We wouldn't need to take a stand for anything if everyone was traveling in the same direction. We would not need strength if we always felt supported. And I'm not so much talking about the little things. That may just be a matter of over-looking an offense. I'm talking about those big, life-transforming, eternally significant, weighty things. The things we might think every Christian would care about or at least agree with.

I think I'm learning how to never mind those things.  It's that whole Matthew 10 bit. That's the way we should expect this life to be. I'm learning that carrying the cross of Christ is hard, even lonely, but so much more worthy an effort than carrying around our burdens or offenses.

Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me, not for the years of time alone, but for eternity!

Chickens!

I really want chickens. Bad-ly! I’ve been talking about this to hubby for several years now and it appears to be close to happening. Four years ago we replaced the corrugated tin roof on our empty chicken coop because of a hail storm. Big hail. Three years ago we replaced the windows and repainted the outside of the coop a happy shade of barn red. Two years ago we cleaned out the inside, repairing woodchuck damage to our dirt floor. Big woodchucks. And last year we placed the fence-posts that will surround our chicken yard, to protect our little sweeties from ravenous dog packs and foxes and such. Don’t want to hastily rush into a big decision like chickens. We’re talking about a good sized “flock” of 8 or 10 birds here. I guess this summer we could actually put up the chicken wire. Build a gate. A gate that opens under the hand-painted sign bearing the name of our chicken coop: Villa Villa Coopa (think Pippi Longstocking).

The other thing I would like to do is decorate the coop. You know, with paintings of hens on squares of barn board. The kids will each make a painting of their dream bird and we’ll hang them up inside the chicken coop. It sounds very Americana to me. I might even make gingham or calico-print aprons for us girls to wear when we go out every morning to collect the eggs. When we go out into that beautiful early morning summer sunshine. Of course, if it does happen to be raining, we will just wear some adorable pink polka-dotted rubber rain boots with our homemade aprons.

I’m sure the boys would dutifully don their knee-patched denim Osh-Kosh B’Gosh overalls, lace up their leather work boots, toss a stem of oats, or wheat, or something… into their mouths (while whistling) and head out there to take their turn cleaning out that chicken coop. I can just picture them feeling all manly, very responsible and grown up as they pull their shovels down off the wall. We’ll all be proud of them. They’ll chat with the hens, playfully teasing them about… whatever a boy would tease a chicken about.

It’s all so dreamy. Fresh eggs, a cute little chicken coop full of happy little chickens, aprons, paintings, oh - and friendly neighbors who pop in to buy eggs! Of course the eggs that don’t sell we’ll just bring to the famer’s market. We’ll probably make a fortune. Who wouldn’t want chickens?

Our Declaration of Independence

When we are first married the thought of coming alongside our husbands is a joy. They need us. We complete them. We so clearly see the beauty of two becoming one in marriage and agree with God’s design. We are there to encourage and support our husbands, to go through this life of little adventures together. The effort to do the work of being a wife is almost weightless. It’s so cute when he loses his car keys; I’ll help him find them. It’s endearing to know that he wants me to come with him on this errand; it will be like a little date. It’s almost charming when he gets angry like that; he’s a very passionate man. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

Then, with something like the words to the Declaration of Independence, “…the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of natures God entitle [her],…[she] should declare the causes which impel [her] to the separation…but when a long train of abuses and usurpations…evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is [her] right, it is [her] duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for [her] future security…”  (blah, blah, blah) we believe we stand justified in not coming alongside our husbands anymore. In an effort to save ourselves, we pull back enough to allow us to live our lives our way, and them to live their lives their way. It’s better than the struggle. We are tired, we’ve been hurt, we are overwhelmed with our other responsibilities, we’ve tried a gazillion times as it is, and when is he ever going to…

Did God’s design fail? Does His plan not work? It doesn’t matter if it’s a crisis situation or just the doldrums; we have to go back to doing this “marriage thing” His way. I am a wife (not just a cohabiter in this house). I was created by God as a female, grew up enough to become a woman, and willingly stepped into marriage, publicly committing to it. And although my commitment was to this marriage and to this husband, it was ultimately a commitment to God, to His way. Even if I can’t believe that my effort will make a change in my marriage, I can stand by my promise (while abiding in Christ) to be a wife who is honorable in God’s sight. I can strive to be a woman, standing next to my husband, who is beautiful to her Savior. I can put all my heart, soul, strength and mind into loving God, genuinely, and trust Him for the results it will have on this other child of God I married (my husband)– who is incomplete, who does need a helper, who was not created to be alone.

All of us desire healing and all of us need to be made pure. Marriage is one of the things God uses to purify us before Eternity, and God will hold us (together) until He heals us.

Shopping With Daughters

I don't know if it is harder to raise godly daughters right now, or godly sons. Having both at home, it seems to me that I would like to hide all of them away until God wipes out the mess around us and starts over with something pure. Then I could send them out into the world, knowing they would be safe, that it could be faily easy to make good choices. But that would be Heaven, wouldn't it?  We're not there just yet.  So, in the meantime, God, give me wisdom and discernment.

I took the girls out shopping the other day. They'd been begging for a chance to spend the money they had saved on some new clothes. I'd been putting them off, partly because I hate the thought of trying to help them find something... decent. I remember when they had moved out of sixe 6X. I was devastated. This meant that it was time to start navigating through the world of "Diva Star" t-shirts and other clothing apparently meant for godesses. Last I heard, there was only one Center of the Universe, and He doesn't go shopping. Life in the mall wasn't going to be sweet and safe anymore. Okay, it never was, but... it was going to be worse.

As we walked from rack to rack and store to store, they kept looking at me saying, "Seriously?"  I was grateful that I didn't have to tell them "no."  I could see that God had been working on refining their own navigation systems.  They were feeling a little underwhelmed at the choices. There was a dull, glazed-over look on their faces.  I was glad.  There wouldn't be any $80 jeans, no pink shirts with skulls and hearts (why am I even seeing these?), nothing that looked painted on, and they weren't overly concerned with spending ALL of their money.  We left with a couple of cute things for each of them and most of their money still in their pockets. 

I don't mean to over-spiritualize this shopping trip, but I had peace. Peace knowing that they were content with something simple. Peace that their hearts were longing for something good instead of something flashy. Peace that our Father God is sovereign and that He is faithful in moulding and building a sense of beauty into our children in a world that is often harsh and shallow.     

A Little Attitude Adjustment

I'm pouting a little today.  I've concluded that it feels as though God hasn't lined up all the circumstances of my life quite fairly.  I've had sick kids all week.  Sometimes four at the same time, all with fevers, all needing care, while a hungry baby cries in the other room, two of the "well" siblings won't stop looking at each other, and over-thawed, raw meat sits on the counter waiting for someone to cook it. The phone rings in the middle of all this and it's my husband, cheerfully asking me how my day is.  My day?!  I don't say what I want to say. Actually, I'd rather just hang up on him for being so cheerful and for not knowing what it feels like to be Stretch Armstrong for 16 hours straight. I have no way of measuring success this week, apart from being able to report that none of the kids have died. Yet.  Of course, we are getting almost no school work done, I've had to cancel piano lessons, Cadets, and life in general, even for the ones who could go if someone could take them, but no one can.  There is no one to bail me out.  My husband is 45 miles away, and he's in a good mood!  That's not fair.

My Dad always told us, "No one ever said life was going to be fair."  I didn't like it when he said it then and I don't like it now, even though today no one is waiting in the wings to dole out unwanted words of wisdom.  But he planted a seed early in my life in hopes that I would reap it's fruits later on.  Ultimately, it was my Heavenly Father who placed faithful parents in my life to model the sacrifice good parents make without complaining.  They cared for us with a servant's heart in our times of need, without ever making us feel as though we were a burden.  I realize now that they were no doubt as human as I feel tonight.  I guess I'm grateful to have Dad's words bouncing around in my whiney brain.  It's the medicine I need.