Two Marys -- One Resurrection

(I wrote this last year, but today is a good day for a repeat. Happy Easter, precious friends - HE IS RISEN!!)

He was my son

He was my teacher

I watched him grow. I heard his first word. I taught him to be a man.

I watched how he treated people. I listened to him teach. I learned from Him that real men value women.

In looking at Him, I saw the promises made to me before He was born, coming to life.

In looking at Him, I saw the promises of a life better than the one I was living.

He made me feel honored, by being my son.

He made me feel valued, by being my friend.

He made me feel safe.

And now, He was dying.

It was getting cold, and his friends were starting to whisper about me, wanting to take care of me and bring me home. To a place that wasn't damp. To a place that wasn't cold. To a place where I couldn't look up and see my son. Dead. On a cross. I didn't want to go. What kind of a mother watches her son die, and doesn't DO something? And now, how could I leave him here? Alone. Cold.

I closed my eyes and saw him as a little boy. Cold from playing outside at night, coming in and allowing me to pull him onto my lap, wrapping him in my cloak to warm him back up. He'd drop his big boy persona, let his head rest on my shoulder, and I'd feel him sigh. Comforted. As he outgrew my lap, he'd still come and sit at my feet, putting his head on my lap, allowing himself to relax.

Just last week he'd come to see me, and my maternal instinct knew that the weight of His calling was getting heavy. Too heavy. To the point of exhaustion. We talked. And then he quietly moved from his chair to the ground next to mine, and leaned his head against my side. This time though, he couldn't relax. He didn't sigh. Not until 20 minutes ago when I heard His loud cry. Followed by a sigh. In death.

I opened my eyes as I heard Mary's anguished screams. And watched her run down the hill, hitting anyone who tried to touch her. I felt John's hand on my arm, pulling me gently, but firmly away. "It's time to go home... mother," he whispered.

I was vaguely aware that it was night and then day. And then another night followed by some sun. I didn't sleep. I couldn't. I just walked. It wasn't the romantic strolling that I was used to with men I'd entertained, or the quiet walking through the streets to clear my head. It was a frantic, can't catch my breath pacing, pausing periodically to vomit as I remembered the scene that had recently played out before me. My body shaking violently. Sweat mixed with tears, pouring down my face as I thought of the only man who had ever loved me for just me, not my body, being beaten, torn and dying as I watched. 

I ended up in a garden. Couldn't even say how I got there, but I desperately needed quiet. I needed to be surrounded by something other than the chaos in the streets. There was enough of that in my own head. Suddenly, I was too tired to continue walking. I couldn't even stand  up any more. My legs collapsed, but I didn't feel pain as I fell. I was beyond feeling anything. My face was flat on the ground, and I let the sobs take over my body. I could feel the tears forming mud in the dirt under my cheek. After a few minutes, I lifted my head and saw that I was in the garden where His tomb was. But something was wrong. The stone wasn't blocking the opening. Too exhausted to even stand, I began a slow crawl toward the grave. As I got to the entrance I pulled myself up and looked in, bracing for the gut-wrenching reality that seeing his body would be to my psyche. But instead of one body, I saw two. And they weren't lying down, they were sitting up. I blinked, frustrated that my mind had begun betraying me, just like my tired body had. But then they spoke. They had the audacity to ask my why I was crying. "WHY DO YOU THINK? The only man who has ever loved me is dead. And this is where his body is supposed to be, and it's not. Where is HE?" I could feel the panic racing through my veins, and the familiar bile rising in my throat as I turned to run. There was someone in my way. My eyes were so full of tears I didn't even look to see a face. I just saw a man blocking my way of escape. I heard him ask me "Why are you crying?" Hadn't he heard me screaming at the other men? I started into the same answer that I had given just seconds before, when He quietly said, "Mary." That voice. I rubbed frantically at my eyes and made myself focus on His face. That face. "Rabonni? RABONNI!" I sobbed, running toward Him.

  

A pounding on the door woke me with a start. Not that my sleep had been peaceful. Nothing was peaceful since walking down that hill, leaving my son behind.

The others in the house were awake as well, and a quick discussion was going on as to whether the door should be opened.

Then we heard a familiar voice. It was Mary. Shouting in between the pounding. Not the desperate wailing that she had done as she rushed away from watching Jesus die. This noise sounded different.

Lifting the latch, I opened the door, steeling myself for whatever emotion she would bring in with her. I was the mother figure. I needed to be strong.

HE'S ALIVE! I'VE SEEN HIM! He said my name.

How can that much sorrow be replaced by that much joy? Two words changed my life.

Changed history.

He's ALIVE!

Glimpses of People

A day full of people.

Eye exams.

Fitting for glasses.

Prayer.

Those are the stations of the eye glass clinics that we do.

These clinics allow us a view of a gigantic cross-section of humanity.

Here are some of the glimpses I was allowed to observe from my spot in the prayer room.

The old lady who practically skipped in, glowing with joy, and asked with a twinkle in her eye that we would pray for God to provide a boyfriend for her.

The very-pregnant mom, who was so young and toting a wide-eyed two year old along beside her. She let me put my hands on her belly, and as I prayed for that unborn baby's future, I got to feel her jump and kick inside.

The aging parents, sobbing over their son who was deathly ill in a nearby hospital.

The mentally challenged man who came up to complain to us that the other people had prayed for him, and not for his mom. "Where is your mom?" "In Heaven - she's dead." And my heart almost exploded, looking at this man! Because, I saw him through Jesus' eyes... and he makes Jesus smile. Big.

The big sister who brought the little sister, asking for prayer to make her be a good girl.

The young teen, struggling with crippling fear... of everything.

And then, the old woman who reminded me of my Grandmother. Who reached out and held my hand when we prayed for her. And I felt like it was God's way of helping me to see that my stoic Grandmother, who was so often incapable of showing affection, is as of November in a place where she knows what Love is. I clung to that hand while tears streamed down my face. And offered up a prayer of thanks for this woman... and the one she reminded me of.

Giving With Abandon

A woman.

A bottle.

His feet.

Her tears.

Matthew's account (26:6-13) of the woman who anointed Jesus' feet with costly oil has long been one of my very favorite stories. And this morning, as I read it once again, I saw it in a brand-new way.

Always before when reading it, I'd been angered by the disciples and their rude and selfish reaction to her serving out of brokenness.

They scorned her gift.

It was HER gift. Not one they chose to give. Not one they had to receive.

This was between Jesus and her... and it came under verbal attack and scoffing disapproval.

I am such a people pleaser, that I know I've often thought "Here's my gift, Jesus... please help (insert name of whoever I'm trying desperately to impress/please) to think it's good enough for You."

This precious woman was far from worried about what people thought. She invaded a room filled with religious men who all despised her, to bathe the feet of a holy man that she had no right to touch. Her thoughts were hardly about what others would think.

She was perfectly devoted to her task.

Loving.

Serving.

Preparing Him for burial.




How often have we looked at someone else's gift and silently thought, "Too much," or "way too small."

Everybody's gift looks different.

And only the giver and Receiver know if it cost everything to give.

But each one is precious, when poured with abandon on the feet of Jesus.

Rainy Memories

It's ridiculously hot. And it's dry. It seems that the hills surrounding Los Anonos catch on fire every other day. The grass is brown, and everything is shriveling up. 

But then, this afternoon - a surprise rain storm!

Bringing life to the earth and refreshment to the deepest part of my soul.

(Catchin' raindrops)

One of my all-time favorite scents is the first sixty seconds after it begins to rain, on a scorching hot day.

So this afternoon I lay on my stomach in front of our open sliding glass door, looking out over the balcony. I'd close my eyes for a minute, just so I could listen closely to the rain falling. But then I'd have to open my eyes, because I was craving the sight of the drops hitting the tile. And the rain-on-hot-earth smell... it's extra pungent in Costa Rica, especially during the dry season.

Most of my memories are attached to smells, so as I lay there, my mind flew back to summer nights last July.

I was here in Los Anonos, but only short-term. And it was a wonderfully confusing and exciting time in my head and my heart. I spent so much of the trip trying to open my heart to the fact that in two months, everything I was experiencing would be my "new normal."

And though I tried to push them down, there were tiny seedlings of expectations growing in my head... Dreams of what the coming year in Costa Rica would entail. Regarding God. People. Situations.

And as I walked through these memories today, it was little painful, because none of those dreams are coming true. 

But in the midst of that momentary pain, I knew this fact: 

In July, I did not know Jesus like I do now. 

And the depth of relationship that we have now... is an unbelievable trade-off for the broken dreams of my July-self.

Smiles Through Tears

When Mindy left this world, her teddy bear came to live with me.

At that time of excruciating grief, it brought so little and yet so much comfort.

Last year, a niece was born... and bore her name... Leela Dymind.

And it was time for someone else, someone whom Mindy would have loved passionately, to share her bear.

So, off it flew to California.

And today, this beautiful picture appeared.

A niece.

A bear.

A balloon.

And I cried happy, cleansing tears. 

For a time long past.

And I smiled.

For a future so bright.

Of Visa Runs

Pictures can be so deceiving. That’s why we all love Facebook! I mean, I can have the crappiest of all times, but if I slap up two pictures of some people smiling, then everybody suddenly knows I love my life, and things are AWESOME - - All The Time.

Take last weekend, for example. Jessie & I had looked forward to this weekend away in Nicaragua for weeks! We’d planned, we’d dreamed, and we knew that getting on the bus to this ocean side paradise of a B&B would provide great stories and much-needed relaxation.

And per the pictures on FB, that encapsulated ten minutes here, and three minutes there, it was epic.

But it’s taken over a week of processing what happened, to start looking at this trip as filled with funny stories, as opposed to the hell that it seemed like as we experienced it.

(A collage from our second day)

 (This picture is entitled... "Of missionaries and tan lines")

 (For this NH girl, watching the sunset on the ocean never gets old )

(And because of that, you get TWO pictures of sunsets from two different evenings)

So, I present to you… The story behind the pictures.

For starters, anything that entails getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning should automatically be placed in the “Bad” file. But there were still the pluses to that, like getting on a bus in San Jose that was filled with a Costa Rican rugby team. Even missionaries like eye candy. 

We were dropped off at the bus “station” in Rivas, Nicaragua, which consisted of… the sidewalk. Not even a sign. A taxi driver grabbed my backpack and put it in the trunk of his car. “Are you the driver that is here to take us to Casa Pelon?” we asked… “Si.” And he made it known that yes, he knew how to get to Casa Pelon. But we knew that there was supposed to be a driver picking us up, not just a cab driver who knew where it was. Suddenly, this old man ran up yelling that HE was the driver to take us. The taxi driver was so mad, that I had to reach around him and take my backpack out of the trunk, because he wouldn’t move, and he certainly wasn’t going to help me if I wasn’t going to pay him.

Jessie & I climbed into a little old pick-up truck, with this little old man, and off we went. However, we found out in conversation that he wasn’t really the driver we had been promised. That was his friend, who had called him and told him he’d be too late to pick us up, so could he do it… and surprise… he didn’t really know where “Casa Pelon” was.

Finally, after driving in an “I think it’s around here somewhere” general direction, and asking many people on the side of the road, we stopped at a small convenience store. He got directions (and offered to buy us both a beer), and we arrived at our B&B.

The room was microscopic and dirty. Attached to it was an even smaller, and dirtier bathroom. There were two dogs who scratched and bit themselves constantly, and a cat whose food dish was on the kitchen counter, walking back and forth all over everything. The open concept area of kitchen/dining room/hang out place was cluttered and occupied by the host, in his hammock most of the time. But the ocean was within view, so we looked at each other, eyebrows raised, and headed to the beach.

There was another woman who was staying there… for a year. It sounded like the plot to a bad Nicholas Sparks’ novel. Recently divorced, very bitter and burnt-out owner of a B&B, rents a room to a recently retired widow from the states, who out of all the countries in the world, sight unseen, picked Nicaragua as the place that she would spend her first year of retirement. And this chick could TALK. Jessie said that most of what she said sounded like one of those hashtags on Twitter that goes on forever, and randomly uses every word in the person’s vocabulary.

We got back from our first trip to the beach, and she was sitting at the kitchen counter.

#girlswhatareyournamesdidyouknowthatthereisanalligatoracrosstheroadwhatmadeyouchoosethisplacewhereareyoufromwhereareyoulivingthealligatorsnameispacoandtomorrowwearegoingintotownwouldyouliketocomewhyareyoumissionariesdoyouhavefamiliesiwasateacherandidonotknowanyspanish

#holycrap

Dinners and breakfasts were part of the price that we had been quoted. The website said he was known for his awesome cooking. “People come for the view, and leave talking about the food.” Yup. We left talking about the food, alright.

The first night he served us… spaghetti. One breakfast we got instant oatmeal and a mini-yogurt. And one night we got back from the beach and he informed us that he didn’t feel like cooking, so he’d be taking us out for dinner at a resort down the street.

However, he didn’t have a car, so the three of us walked to a little bar down the road where some of his friends were, and got in their car, (replete with solo cups of beer held tightly in the grasp of the driver, because Nicaragua doesn’t have any liquor/driving laws) and were dropped off at the resort.

We were told to get whatever we wanted, but that he wasn’t hungry so was just going to drink. We finished our food as he finished his third drink.  By then he was hungry enough to eat the leftovers off our plates. And drunk enough to be a… well, people who love me and care about my safety are reading this, so we’ll finish that sentence with “a perfect gentleman.”

Our last day there we had ants everywhere in our bedroom. When he went in to investigate he came out and said, “I can’t see any. But I don’t have any spray anyway, so can you just deal with it for the rest of the time?”

The bus trip back took forever, and my view was a head full of the largest lice I have ever seen, happily staring at me for the duration.

And this wicked long post is just a glimpse… I didn’t even include the:

• “No power, no shower” sign on the bathroom door when we lost power for the third time
• The death of a young man at the hostel next to us, due to electrocution at a concert they were hosting
• “Help yourself to anything in the fridge” – and when opening it, seeing the entire bottom shelf covered with dead insects
• No wifi
• Our host graciously (and drunkenly) reading to us out of “Jesus Calling” the last night… ending with going in for a good night kiss.
• Taxi rides to and from San Juan del Sur, in a taxi that had no shocks and over 400,000 miles on it
• Drunk man in the middle of San Juan del Sur, screaming obscenities and getting hauled off to jail in front of us

Worth Waking Up To

This article was in my inbox when I got up this morning.

I loved it's title, "Stop Telling Christian Singles What They Can't Do," and continued loving so many of the points made.

Here are some snippets, if you don't feel like reading the whole thing, which I suggest highly enough to link to it THREE times on this blog!

"Don't" dominates the church's guidance for singles far more than "Do."

But the race is run looking forward — no matter how badly you ran the last mile.

In my early years of adulthood, I was so disgusted with singleness that about the only advantage I could see was the chance to practice lazy hygiene without major consequence. But the older that I've gotten, the more I've begun to see contrasts between my own life and opportunities and those of my married friends. And while I still don't always enjoy sexual abstinence, I believe the church would do well to talk more about what such restraint frees single people to do with our bodies and our lives.

But the universe of relationships is much bigger and more diverse than that; interacting mainly with those who share your life stage or could share your bed relationally impoverishes you. 

However you invest yourself in them, non-romantic relationships — especially with those in different seasons of life — provide a good reminder that life entails much more than randy singlehood, and loneliness can be assuaged by more than a lover.

Good STUFF!

Sure - most youtube videos that I like are under three minutes.

But this is SO worth your time.

Cracks

A couple of months ago I heard another missionary say, “Someone told me when I first got here, that on the mission field your cracks become chasms. The things that you struggled with at home, during ‘normal’ life, suddenly become completely blown out of proportion… instead of just disappearing, like we’d prefer.” I mean, I’m a MISSIONARY, for heaven’s sake. That’s spelled “p-e-r-f-e-c-t-c-h-r-i-s-t-i-a-n,” right?

I didn’t consciously think this, but I now realize that my thought process on some level before I came was, “I said ‘yes’ to His call. God will honor that. When I step off the plane in Costa Rica, I will be a new me! A better me! One with fewer faults, less idiosyncrasies, a greater love for all that is holy, and a greater disdain for any distraction that takes my affections away from God.”

Guess who had the audacity to step with me onto the plane in Maine, and off the plane in Costa Rica? ME!

In the short flight from the US to my mission field, I had not turned into Mother Theresa OR Amy Carmichael. 

Devastating.

And not only was I the same Lindsay… I was suddenly thrown into community living after ten years of having my own precious  and wonderfully private apartment. So all those cracks that were becoming chasms, were splitting right in front of a daily audience.

Painful.

Awkward.

Life.

After about a month of being here, I realized that even though I had never even really thought these words, much less spoken them out loud to God or a person, there were little seeds of “I’m here. In Costa Rica. What more do You want from me?” starting to grow in my head and heart.

Saying “yes” to Him is not a one-time gig. I know this! But I’m really finding it out now. It’s a daily, hourly, minutely choice to say “Not my will, but Yours be done.”  When Mom was here, we talked a lot about 1 Corinthians 15:31 “I die daily.” Death looks so different in each one of our every-day lives. But it’s not at all comfortable. It still hurts.

Which brings me to John 12:24. “… Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

The last few weeks before I moved here were incredibly painful. The sorting, the packing and the goodbyes. It was heart-wrenching and scary. I was telling one of my closest friends about this, and he had just written a song… about John 12:24. And he reminded me - THE DEATH IS NOT POINTLESS. The pain isn’t without a purpose.

Little seed in my hand--

Symbol of hope and what is planned,

You hold the future in a single grain,

Tomorrow's harvest, tomorrow's gain.

Unless that seed falls to the earth,

Unless it dies to its own worth,

It has no life, it bears no fruit,

It cannot feed a multitude,

It dwells alone with little worth,

But if it dies it fills the earth.

Just one life I have to live

Teach me to yield, teach me to give;

Hopes, desires swirl all around,

Only in losing can life be found.

So let this life fall to the earth,

Let it die to its own worth,

That it may grow and bear much fruit,

And may it feed a multitude;

Beneath Your feet deep in the ground

Let this life die and there be found.

The seed may break, the seed may fall,

And it may suffer in letting go;

But in its breaking some may be healed,

And in its death new life will be revealed.

So let this life fall to the earth,

Let it die to its own worth,

That it may grow and bear much fruit,

And may it feed a multitude;

Beneath Your feet deep in the ground

Let this life die and there be found.

-Craig Sandford

The death, the cracks, the chasms … NONE of it is pointless if it’s done out of a “yes” to Him. Because without all three of those, the grain of wheat wouldn’t be growing. And without growth, it wouldn’t do any good. The wheat wouldn’t become what it’s entire purpose in life is… to bring life to hungry people.