Disobey your hope

In my ESL classes we are learning about feelings, characteristics and qualities. I was struggling to define the word " disappointed" when one of the students looked it up in her translator. The Chinese equivalent is to 'disobey your hope'. The circumstances disobeyed your hope, the feeling of disappointment disobeys your hope, your are disobeying your hope by being disappointed...whatever the meaning it is spot on.
I am disappointed when I have had an expectation, a hope, and that hope has not been met. The outcome dis-obeyed my expectation.
It is hard to deal with disappointment. It is hard for my kids to hear that they have disappointed me...more so then if they make me angry. It is easy to understand in light of disobeying some one's hope.
I think in a relationship with God, both of us get disappointed with the other. God does not come through...He did not do what I had hoped He would do...He disobeyed my hope. The question is...why do I have that expectation? Does He have to obey my hope?
Do I have to obey His hope for me? Neither is an Have To...I guess it would be better if it was a Get To.
The rub is...His hope for me is always to be my benefit. My hope for Him isn't.

Faith---full---ness

In my picture file on my computer is a bunch of these pictures taken from some telescope..satellite somewhere. This picture of a cosmic butterfly caught my eye...spectacular. The name of my file folder where I gather all these pictures is called faithfulness. What is it about the world OUT there that makes me think about God's faithfulness? The heavens declare the glory of God the Bible says, not so much about His faithfulness. I wonder why it speaks more to me about His faithfulness.
Maybe because what we see out there happened a looooooooooong time ago and we are just able to see it now. I think it says is that God likes beauty...granduer...spectacular...amazing..His perspective, faithfulness is not limited to a time frame. If you think about it long enough... I wonder how much of the fantastic is still not discovered? Faithfulness to what is unseen, undiscovered, unknown. Maybe...even...what is still unknown, undiscovered and unseen in the seeming nonsense of our lives is known and seen by Him. If He can make spectacular OUT there eons ago so that we can view it today...can you just imagine what He can do with all that we are doing today for the eons ahead.
I've been reading history books about the Irish, the middle ages, the Jews and the Roman and Greek empires. In every time period people had a unique and different relationship with God. How did someone know during the middle ages have a relationship with God? They did not ask Jesus into their hearts, have a personal relationship with God..yet... we can't write those generations of people off as though they did not know God. I think we become myopic in what we think is true faith...We limit God's story by defining Him by today's cultural reality. Just like this butterfly in space...we can't even begin to see the faithfulness of God written throughout each history's reality. We can't even begin to see the faithfulness of God written in each of our own daily realities. It may not be seen in this generation...but faithfulness is always seen in every generation by the faithfulness of the generation before.
Trust me..I am listening to myself. :)

1 in a billion

In my ESL classroom, I have the privilege of teaching Chinese students as well as Korean. One of these is a beautiful young girl from China. This week she feels far fay away from home, misunderstood by her host family, frustrated with the language and lonely. As she sat in my room struggling to say what she feels, she put her head in her arms and just began to weep. Of all the ESL classes, in all the US schools, this 1 in a billion Chinese student sat in a class with a teacher who understood everything she was going through. I could have wept with her...as I remembered my own longing in a boarding school so far away from my family and my home. I put my arms around her and waited for the tears to stop. Another student who is her advocate, she translates for her, told me that she (my homesick student) just needs to be loved. I know this feeling...I understand this loneliness...I get to wrap my arms around her aching heart.
So when I wonder why I am here at this time, maybe it is for this 1 in a billion.

Monday Morning...

I heard on the news this AM that the Atheist in the world have split into two different factions. One's that turn to ridicule those who believe and the others who want to engage in dialogue. One is called the fundamentalist atheists and the other a more kinder, gentler version. I am still wondering what to do with this kind of information.
I could not fall asleep last night till late so as a result this morning came early. It was dark and cold in the house...so definitely a Monday morning.
Nick came home with all sorts of stories from his hunting trip. What he is most proud of is the shooting of a small squirl and the subsequent skinning. OK...no mangy pelts in the house, we already have a pheasant in the freezer.
I can't seem to engage myself into gear this AM...something is absent.
I think my last post was a bit too personal...Oh well...
It is Monday Morning...

Seeing the edge...

The silence of the house this morning reflects so well what is going on internally. Mijo is at a retreat, the boys are hunting...I anchor the family. They can fly because I can stay. These past weeks have been difficult for me. In light of the past posts maybe I should just wait till things look better. There is an assumption on my part that many have stopped reading and I am now writing more for internal clarity. Clarity I need. I was talking to a friend yesterday and as I talked I grew weary of hearing myself so if that is true, I am sure it was true for him. There is a weariness in the core of my soul. I am tired of trying to put the right spin on life, tired of trying to find the good. Even as I write that last statement...I realize how little people want to hear this drum-beat of heaviness. So if you are reading...I understand. Trust me, I am so very tired of me as well. So don't read on if you are looking for good news...
So what happened Heidi...who/what stole your perspective and joy?
After the BBQ...it took 4 weeks to get the money. I was so hesitant to have a fund-raiser for all the reasons that happened. I realize now that as we count the money...it is so little in comparison to what is needed. Every little bit helps is the mantra. It is a big bill...and when all is said and done, financial security makes me feel secure.
In the last five years of my life with Curtiss, while he was drinking, we were really poor. I lived in a wrecked trailer in a trailer park with other broken down people. It would have been the trailer park that would have been hit by a tornado if we were in that part of the world and it would have been a favor to the community around. We were an eyesore. While Curtiss was wandering the streets, folks would wander by this trailer of mine looking to see if we would buy their food-stamps. You see...since I had two small children and no money I was on food-stamps and well-fare. Before we were sold this trailer by folks who were out to make a buck (long story) we were homeless. Friends of my Dad forked over money to help us buy this shabby home on wheels in the middle of poverty. Being married to an alcoholic makes friends hard to come by and family even less. I have no idea what if anything the church did.
So I know financial insecurity...I don't like it at all. Trust in the Lord, He will provide. No...only in the US do we think that God is obligated to keep us financially secure. Look around the world, there are many many poor who love Jesus and live in poverty. All this to say...I am sitting on the edge looking over the side and wondering what next...what hammer will fall down this time.
So to whomever is reading...this time I hope not many at all...I can't seem to wrap this one up in a pithy lesson learned. I'm mad at the horse owner who made little of my fear, at LC for so many many promises made and un-delivered but at myself mostly. I should have, would have, could have...so many many things.

Went to a wedding...

I went to a wedding last night for a former student of mine, wow...beautiful bride and handsome groom. Everything was lovely and as I watched her dance with her new husband I remembered what she was like in my class.
This is one of the joys of teaching...watching what students become. I think when we teach long enough we begin to think that what we see is all they will ever become. The awkward, lumpy, aggressive, dramatic, shy, insecure teenagers who grace our classrooms are just that but not yet done. I always picture them as lumpy clay where we make an indentions in their formation but we are far away from making the final cut. We are pressing in some features, detailing some lines , and if not careful making some serious marks. It is an awesome task to be a teacher...it carries serious ramification when done wrong. BUT...we are in the process of formation and when given the privilege of forming a good line it is just that a privilege.
This girl who danced herself into being a wife...was not awkward, lumpy or insecure. She was/is graceful, beautiful and talented. She invited me in anyway...and I walked along with her in her journey through high school and beyond. What a gift she gave me as her teacher and now her friend.

It has been two whole week since I have posted...anything.

I think it is because I have started a quilt and I find myself drawn to complete that one task. So much of my daily routine is on-going rather then completing. In fact everything is on-going. There isn't much that we can start and finish and then be done. So in making a quilt I find the satisfaction of starting something and then being intimately involved with its completion. Just me and the sewing machine making something out of scraps of material into something I will use and cherish for a long time. It is necessary for me at this time to be doing something with my hands and not so much with my mind. I find that with all that has transpired with me physically in the last few months...ironically, I have been mentally possessed. Trying to solve the conundrums of faith, and American culture and raising teenagers while wondering what I really need to do to make a difference if there is a difference to make at all.
Someone said to me once...and I sure wish I could remember who to give credit where credit is due... that often times life is lived as though we were driving looking at the rear-view mirror. We see where we are going by looking only at where we have come from. So we never go anywhere we just leave where we were...I think that has been me. I don't know how to wrench my face forward...to live expectantly, with anticipation and hope. I want to use the rear-view for what it was intended...to give warning at what may be coming up because of where I have been rather then having where I have been be what I focus on.
We glance at our past to make reference to where we are but not to dictate where we are going or where we should be. Arn't there verses upon verses that tell us to press on, make every effort, forget what is behind, walk by faith not by sight etc.
How do I wrench my head forward...for me a great segue has always been to make something with my hand presently that I will use in the near future. An accomplishment of sorts that is tangible that has nothing whatsoever to do with my past, my angst , my thinking, my desire for credible answers. Making quilts is a very present kind of enterprise. It requires concentration, creativity, practical skills but very little verbal skills. So....looking forward to the road ahead...I am going back to my quilt. :)