5 years ago tomorrow

     My older brother, my mom's firstborn son fell in love.  No, this time it wasn't a girl, not a new car or delicious food but with a people.  He went to Sulaymaniyah, Iraq after graduating with a teaching degree.  It was just for a semester.  A short-term mission to get his feet wet in teaching before perhaps moving on to a Master's degree or other teaching position.  Then, 6 months turned into a year and then 2 and 6 and God compelled him with a calling and the people tugged at his large beating heart, and he had a vision of people transformed.  And then, almost as suddenly as it started, it was over.  He opened the morning, like the start of every other school day, in prayer and as he looked up expecting to see his classroom, instead he saw the face of God- the One whom He had just been extolling and beseeching. In that little classroom, the lives of his pupils would never be the same as three shots rang out, hitting their mark with precision, emptying my dear brother's pumping heart of it's life blood.  And then the conflicted and broken student shot himself, his own life ending a few ours later in an Iraqi Emergency Department.  Jeremiah's life became a seed spilled out and planted in the ground for others to water, cultivate and reap that the harvest among the Kurds might be great.  

        On this fifth anniversary of his escape into Glory, I thought it only fitting to share his thoughts on a hymn and a little of his life story.  You can get more of his thoughts in a small compilation called Reflections and here more of his story in the following links.  

 Excerpts from some of his email correspondence:

A couple amazing things and two other nearly amazing things have happened in the past week and two.  #1 amazing thing: A student in the school ... encountered a situation where he realized he needed to apologize to his brother and discovered in the process that the act of saying he was sorry destroyed his whole worldview and left only the truth... for him to turn to.  So he did.  “Suddenly it was like light, and I knew things I hadn’t known before and felt in ways I can’t describe; but God was there and I could speak with Him and He spoke with me.”  I was overawed to see how completely his pride and self-consumed interest has been turned inside out.  “I have so much pain for the people around me,” he said, “I want them to be healed; I never knew how special these people were; it’s like I’m seeing them for the first time.”  One has planted, another sown, one brought light, another a challenge, and the Spirit gave life.  He’s been quick to begin telling his family about his change and they accept the newness with what is somewhat amused wonder.  “I started saying ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’, now everyone in my house is saying hello to each other and being more thankful.  It’s really cool!”

 

Dear friends,

Tomorrow marks the beginning of another year of school (I count myself lucky in a way to start so late) and the 7th school year of work here.  The sameness surprises me.  One would think that leaving home to return to this home would get easier, or that starting out another year would be old hat, but no.  Saying goodbye to family and friends is hard as ever, and I'll step into tomorrow with as much fear of failure as ever I did.  

It's the days before the launch that terrorize me: I feel the weight of such responsibility and import in the things we have to deliver.  I teach history, philosophy, literature, religion, civil government, but I am to communicate the gospel.  Playing devil's advocate for Muhammad-ism, stressing the significance of Hellenism, fielding Nietzsche - all these are paths to the truth.  But what an unfit vessel of light I find myself to be.  So the nagging questions persist (what if I don't organize well enough, what if I am too heavy handed, what if I don't see and seize the opportunities) until I see them scattered as day rolls into day and wisdom and help are granted for each interaction and grace is revealed to cover many mistakes.  

I am grateful to know that the opportunities that come are not mine to make but His to give and that the eyes to see them are also His to give and not mine to try and find.  I'm reminded of the truth I discovered I'd been learning this summer: "Our prayers are not our own."  I fall to thinking that my prayers are a way of waking God to an urgent need that has grabbed my attention.

"Hey!  Look at this! and DO something about it!" I pray as if He needed to be shaken and prodded.

But believe it or not, He's seen it all along.  It was my attention that needed grabbing; I'm the one who has finally seen what He has seen all along - and the great thing is that now He's pulled me into His work by laying the burden of prayer on my heart and causing me, in some sense, to fear His not being involved.  He moved me to see and gave me prayer in order to join me to the work He was already doing.  Which leads me to another amazing truth - to be shared another time.

Hymn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfQth9cdUtU



Tributes to Jeremiah Small
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZIB2C5fbo8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYrdPJ_bH6Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac1_ahj86B8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PrwSTyPJtw

In the news
https://world.wng.org/2012/03/a_rush_of_life
http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2012/03/01/jeremiah-small-teacher-slain-in-iraq-from-religious-washington-family/

A compilation of some of his writings/thoughts
https://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Writings-Jeremiah-Small-Dan/dp/0989066304

What wondrous love!

 How deep the Father's love for us!  How vast beyond all measure!  That you would give Your only Son not only to redeem me and call me a child but to be my bridegroom- me who had nothing, nothing for this arrangement except my brokenness, depravity and filth.  Me, you called white and clothed my nakedness, cleansing me from all filth and stain to become the very righteousness of God in Christ.  And it was You who brought all to the table - all the love and desire, all the preparation, all the clothing, all the Bride price and You ask only for my willingness and for my acceptance- for a heart that says "Yes" to that! Who could not!  What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul! What wondrous love is this that He should send His only Son to make this wretch His treasure!  How can it be!  That I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood - Oh the preemptive, prevenient grace that captures and draws me!

What Wondrous Love is This!

 What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
That caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down
Beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb I will sing, I will sing;

To God and to the Lamb I will sing; 

To God and to the Lamb, 

Who is the great I AM, 

While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing,

While millions join the theme, I will sing.

 And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free 
I’ll sing His love for me,
And through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And through eternity I’ll sing on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g26dbNJYJI

"What Wondrous Love Is This" (often just referred to as "Wondrous Love") is a Christian folk hymn, sometimes described as a "white spiritual", from the American South. Its text was first published in 1811, during the Second Great Awakening, and its melody derived from a popular English ballad. The hymn's lyrics were first published in Lynchburg, Virginia in the c. 1811 camp meeting songbook A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use. The lyrics may also have been printed, in a slightly different form, in the 1811 book Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected published in Lexington, Kentucky. (It was included in the third edition of this text published in 1818, but all copies of the first edition have been lost.) In most early printings, the hymn's text was attributed to an anonymous author, though the 1848 hymnal The Hesperian Harp attributes the text to a Methodist pastor from Oxford, Georgia named Alexander Means.

Most sources attribute the hymn's melody to the 1701 English song "The Ballad of Captain Kidd", which describes the exploits of pirate William Kidd (misnamed "Robert" in American versions of the ballad).The melody itself predates the Kidd usage, however, possibly by more than a century.

 - borrowed from Wikipedia

Bedtime lullabies

     Ever since my girls were babies, I would sing two hymns to them at night.  Lying in bed, rubbing their backs or gently rocking them these words were softly sung calling out truth and singing it over their lives.  I think this became one of my favorite hymns to sing to them because I liked the way Imago Dei, the church we were a part of in Portland, OR, sang it.  It stirs something in me.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Sufjan Stevens

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy, ever ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it
Mount of Thy unchanging love

 

     As I held my little blessings in my arms, so thankful for the grace of being able to conceive and carry a child after 4 years of struggling to have our firstborn, these words became so poignant.  Calling out to be taught words higher than we could sing, words of praise beyond the praise we can find for His high and unchanging love, for His divine intervention in the lives of men!  I understand that longing for words of praise more adequate, more holy and beautiful than ones I know.

Here I raise my Ebenezer
Here there by Thy great help I've come                          
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home                                                
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God

     Ebenezer - a stone of remembrance.  Abraham raised several of these, Jacob raised up the stone he used for a pillar the night GOD came to him in a dream with a promise to be His God, and he raised it up and worshiped.  I have a little china plate with stones upon it - words written on them of victories GOD has accomplished for me, times He has carried me through.  This was part of a devotional time led by a dear friend in WA state, my prayer partner, medical clinic manager and right hand Deana Schlauch.  It's good, important to remember and set up physical evidences to help us remember...and worship.  They go hand in hand.  Days get dark and it can be hard to see the truth or feel it, but remembering what He has done can renew our hope and trust for what He will yet do. 

He, to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be
Let that grace now, like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee                                      
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart. O, take and seal it

Seal it for Thy courts above.

     I was in danger and didn't know it.  I was floundering, helpless and condemned to death under God's righteous wrath for my sin, corrupting in my body what was meant to be holy, which was created for communion with the Divine.  And He took it all on Himself.  He bore the whole weight of that, stepped into the danger and rescued me that I might never know it.  How keenly I've felt the need for His grace to constrain and bind myself to Him, to keep me, to seal my heart in love for Him above all else, preparing me as a bride for THAT DAY.  One day we will walk with the angels in the everlasting light of His presence and it will all make sense, be oh so much more than worth it.  Our petty wandering, complaining, distrust, fears will seem so paltry, so feeble, but we will see His hand upholding us and loving us through it all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUhU0HgTq

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GSv8Cv516U         

More story behind the hymn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7L87jG-DEU

    My daughters are growing up now, but I'll still sometimes sing this song over them, when they've awakened from a bad dream, are struggling or tired.  Timeless truth with a beautiful lilting tune.

 

Masquerade ball last night

                 

             

                                                    

                     

One of Those Days

Friday was one of those days. One of those days I don't want to have again for a really, really long time. Have you ever had one of those? Nothing particularly tragic or crushing occurred, but it was a series of multiple complaints, multiple acts of disobedience, and one tired, uncomfortable body jumbled on top of one another. I'm sure you too have had a chance to yell, "would you just control yourself!!" followed by a stunning inward realization that you were not anywhere close to exhibiting the kind of behavior you would like to be demonstrated.   

            And after several hours of disciplining others while Holy Spirit is disciplining you, you just want to collapse in a mess of tears of frustration and self-deprecation. "I've spent the morning blowing it again," my mind tells me.  "When are you ever going to learn?"  And I can't seem to get away from the nagging sense of inadequacy and inward brokenness. I see clearly my need but not so clearly the way out. Then, while taking a few minutes to debrief with my sewing machine, relegating the children to my husbands care for a breather, I hear this song come on Pandora and I breathe. I breathe gratitude, relief, hope, freedom from condemnation.      
                                        There is a Fountain
 1. There is a fountain filled with blood 
drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
and sinners plunged beneath that flood
lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains,
lose ALL their guilty stains;
and sinners plunged beneath that flood
lose all their guilty stains. 

2. The dying thief rejoiced to see
that fountain in his day;
and there may I, though vile as he,
wash all my sins away.
Wash all my sins away,
wash all my sins away;
and there may I, though vile as he,  

wash all my sins away.

                                       

                 

3. Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood 
shall never lose its power 
till all the ransomed church of God 
be saved, to sin no more. 
Be saved, to sin no more, 
be saved, to sin no more; 
till all the ransomed church of God 
be saved, to sin no more. 
 

  4. E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream  thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die; redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. 

5. Then in a nobler, sweeter song, 

I'll sing thy power to save, 

when this poor lisping, stammering tongue
lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave,
lies silent in the grave;
when this poor lisping, stammering tongue
lies silent in the grave. 

  

I find sweet relief in the reminder that ALL of my sins have been washed away!  He didn't redeem me just from a few or for a while but EVERY sin upon Him was laid.  My heart is not stirred to become lax and unconcerned but stirred up to love more deeply and follow in closer obedience to the One who has set me free from sin's condemnation and has taken it all upon Himself. Amazing Grace!  How sweet the sound! Story behind the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlgpIpvW8e8 Two great renditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b25-LJjrGQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH5u7UuzDyc