Dear Friends,

Just a gentle nudge to remind you that in order to follow the new blog postings, you will need to go to the new site and follow the instructions for subscribing.  You will not automatically get postings even though you were prescribed here at Unswervingly Held. 

I am greatly aware of how much noise we receive in our inboxes and understand that sometimes there are seasons for things. But if you did intend to re-subscribe, please go to the new site below. Click on the small black box with the parallel lines on the top right corner of the page. When it opens up, scroll down below the comments and click on follow blog by email.  It's a bit harder to find than on my previous site.

Thanks so very much!

Blessings,
Barbara

www.barbdillard.com

Words Remaining

Dear Readers,

I know. It's been quiet on my end for awhile. I confess that I began to wonder if I was just part of the ongoing noise pollution.  I disliked everything I was writing and wondered if I had anything new to say. Even the purpose of my writing came into question within my own heart. However, this past year away has shown me several things.

First, I need you more than you need me.  Can I tell you what a privilege it is to be invited into your home with my thoughts?  

Second, I've unplugged a bit and am learning to hear my own voice again.  It's actually more of a whisper but I'm okay with that.

Third, I must never limit the proclamation of God's truth.  If faith comes by hearing, who am I to decide that my web presence is one too many?

If you have missed my occasional posts in your mailbox over the past year, please join me at my new home noted below.   Don't forget to re-subscribe there to continue to receive posts since I will no longer be posting at Unswervingly Held.

Joy,
Barbara


Barbdillard.com

Yielding

A new grandson is born over a recent weekend and we display his picture on Facebook with joy overflowing.  "Likes" and warm congratulations adorn this cherished event.  People whom we barely know rejoice with us.  

On another Facebook page, a different child’s picture is displayed.  Husband and wife celebrate alone. They stroke the picture of their offspring with bittersweet, caressing her with their eyes.  Eight years is an eternity to not touch your daughter, much less get a glimpse of her or look into her eyes. 

Mental illness ripped her from them as a teenager.  Months bled into years as she denied them contact.  She is older now – a grown woman - yet she is carried in that mama and daddy place inside them just the same. 

And in this recent picture, the estranged one smiles.  Eyes seem to dance, arms around the few she has allowed into her fragmented mind and world.  And in a flash, just for a moment, she seems to smile at the grieving parents. 

They yearn to break her free from the chains that bind her but not unlike our new grandson, she must be birthed in God’s perfect timing.  So they wait and view her from afar, on screens and through other's chance encounters. Though their pain has taken a settled place within them, there is no bitterness or resentment.   They serve joyfully, pray faithfully and celebrate other's life events. 

Often we think that “having it together” is a score for the home team as Christians.   But I think far more is spoken through lives of faithfulness in the grit and grind of imperfection and brokenness.  Because honestly, it shouldn't be about us anyway.   It's about how our lives point to God.  When we yield the canvas of our hopes and dreams, the Great Artist creates.   He may paint with a different stroke, but it is perfect in His way and timing.

The true beauty of our lives is not in being free of life's problems but in the yielding.  And this is the life that we see in them. 

In the meantime they, whom we love so dearly, whose pain we tenderly but awkwardly hold, wait.  On tiptoe. And as the storm rages on and they are pelleted by downpours, we pray and watch with them for rainbows. 

The Writing on the Wall (or Table)

The show room lights rained down upon the outdoor furniture display.  Like Goldilocks, I tried out the chair for a fit and it did not disappoint. Even the table was "just right".  I could already envision it nestled outside our bedroom window, a perch for a good read, birdwatching and relaxation.  Yes, it would fit the empty space perfectly.

The table and chair set found its home in the spot that I imagined; it filled the space but it didn’t fill me.  Not like I thought it would.  I can't even remember the last time that I sat there.  The desert dust collects on the table top as the chair's fabric sears under the blaze of the southwestern sun, a daily reminder of the appetite I have for stuff and how little value it holds in the end. 

There is something about a vacant place that seeks fulfillment.  This time I would fill with a table and chairs that in the end, didn’t meet any real need.  More often, the vacant place is within me.  Wants blur into needs and I forget the countless items in my life that just occupy space, time and upkeep without any real reward.   

Truth be told, there is a cost.

Deut 32:15 says “Jeshurun (a poetic word for Israel) grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek.  They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior”

The fatter we become, the less our awareness of what really satisfies.  We want Egypt's bread instead of early morning tidbits of manna that we cannot store up.  These earthly counterfeits take up residence in our lives while heaven's accumulated treasure plummets into negative numbers.  Like the Israelites, our hearts revert to idolatry even when we have tasted so much more.

We can run and fill haphazardly or we can quiet our hearts and listen to the real need.  These days I am running way too much, filling with the temporal, all the while hungering for nuggets in the hillside that must be mined.   I shake my head when I read the foolishness of the Israelites but I fare no better.

In His grand design, when God fills, it is as a spring rather than an inlet.    While it may nourish us, it's extended purpose is always for something beyond us.  Our flesh says "fill me" but the Spirit says "fill and then empty".  In God's upside down Kingdom, we find the fullest expression of who we are created to be.

And it's a perfect fit every time.

 

 

 

 

 

Polishing Plaques

“For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain”

Phil 1:21

I displayed this desk top verse proudly during my college years.  It became a fixture and so settled in upon my desk that eventually the only time I saw it was when I dusted it.  And really, I had no concept of the meaning behind it.  What 18 yr old girl , looking brightly into the future, can embrace a concept of her own death?  And how little I knew of a life so lived for Christ that it could swallow me up.

Many years have passed since that little plaque and I have learned a few things.

I’ve learned that sometimes living for Christ might be harder than dying for Christ.  Good intentions remain just that - good intentions.  One passion usurps another.  And as time passes without action, the specificity of convictions are lost.  Similar to panning out from a location on a Google map, the details fade against the backdrop of “more”.  My intentions must lock in with gears of motion.  I must continually remind myself that the servant in the parable of the talents is judged not for doing wrong things but for doing nothing.

I’ve learned that life is brief and accelerates as one gets older.  The Scriptures tell us that life is but a mere breath in time. On a recent Sunday our pastor directed us to take a “congregational breath”and then he said, “Congratulations, that was your life.”  The rest of the sermon came alive at that point.  There is an urgency in time that I seldom feel.  But gray hair and wrinkles are reminders of how quickly "todays" bleed into "yesterdays".  

I’ve learned that obvious sin may be managed but living with the depravity of my own heart is exhausting.  A prayer phrase from the book, The Valley of Vision, reads “sin’s deformity is stamped upon me”.  It's true.  Each day I start with a clean slate but before I have even left the house I’ve fallen multiple times.  I am the freshly bathed child who immediately slips out to play in puddles of mud.  Without the grace and mercy of Christ, I lean toward destruction.

I’ve learned that dying is not a one time event.  I will have to die many times before that final hour.  Many of these deaths are within my control, choices that I make in response to the rhythm of life.  I will have to die to perfect families, flawless marriages, and satisfying jobs.  To having my own way, to keeping peace, to having order.  To earthly security, to always being liked and respected.  Because my ultimate death will be consummated someday in One who gave everything up for me. My tiny sacrifices are paltry against the backdrop of His love.  

As I brush off the mental dust from Phil 1:21,  I want this verse to hold me instead of me holding it.   I want to be so wrapped up in Jesus, so living His grace that I need no plaque to announce how I embrace living and dying.   

And that's a long walk home.

Pot of Gold

In my reverie, I am back in that kitchen again with its black and white checkerboard wall paper and spotless counter-tops.  Mom, clad in her signature faded apron, stands at the stove fussing over the pot - the "magical pot", as we fondly label it.  It is old, dimpled and scarred, crusted with flecks of previous delicacies. Even so, it seems that everything cooked in it is bound for success.  Simmering pot roasts, steaming pork and kraut, and ham spiked navy beans find home in its beloved arms.  But the "piece de resistance" is the homemade vegetable beef soup.

The story goes that once when the pot cradled this divine soup, my Mom felt an urge to share it.  Now you must know that as a child of the Depression, this was not characteristic of her. Often she gave, but only when there were “leftovers”.  This new thought was first fruits giving - giving without assurance that there would be enough for us.  And for one who had known uncertainties as a child, this was new territory. Winter chill frosted the windows as she prepared the nourishment within our insulated fortress.  But give it away, she did.  Amazingly, when we sat down to enjoy the remaining soup, it appeared as if nothing had been taken out of it.  We felt like the widow at Zeraphath whose jar of flour and jug of oil did not run out.

Shauna Niequist, in her book Bread and Wine, says that “Food connects us to good memories, tells us we’re safe and brings us back to sweeter times on hard days."  This pot and its various contents are rooted in all that and more..

My Mom is gone now.  She and I share no more culinary delights.  Today, I press the pot’s cold metal to my pursed lips and close my eyes.  I can feel her, smell her.  And the aroma of vegetable beef soup invades my awareness.  Isn't it crazy how the things you think matter hold little sway when the loss has a chance to burrow in and mature?  This old pot, worth little in material value, is locked in my memories.  And now it is locked in my daughter’s memories as she too anticipates it in her home someday.

A little piece of her Nana and me.

For the Love of Camels

The rich young man had asked the question.  And Jesus had answered.  “Sell it all. Give to the poor”.  And as if that wasn’t enough to fill the ear, the chilling prognosis came later when his disciples questioned him further:

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” 

These words of Jesus trip me up every time.  Because I’m rich.  And so are you.  We are First world people. 

I want to rationalize these words. Really, what camel ever wanted to go through the eye of a needle anyway?  But maybe that‘s the point. Desire is the crack in the doorway to knowing God.  Maybe the glitz and glitter of wealth can eclipse that desire. 

So while these words of Jesus appear hard to us, they are actually about hope.  Because as He spoke, Mark says Jesus loved this rich young man, knowing that this unburdening was vital to the righteousness he craved.  So rather than shame, I see incredible love. Apparently selling possessions and giving to the poor is not only about the poor.  And these words, though specific to the rich young man, actually hold promise for us as well.

Prosperity comes with not only enjoyment, but also upkeep and distraction from our underlying thirst.  It deceives us, seeding independence and self sufficiency.  No wonder the Third World is exploding in Gospel receptivity and growth, while we in the First World, like that famous frog, are dying in the slowly boiling water of prosperity.

I have been following 4 bloggers who traveled to Africa with World Help.  In a strange way, I envy the exceeding joy of the African believers who have nothing in terms of worldly health and wealth.  The treasure I hear them proclaim is Christ.  As Scripture says, hearts and treasures are undeniably linked.

My pregnant daughter and family will soon be moving into a home with additional bedrooms to accommodate baby #3.  Our grandson, upon his first visit to the home, raced the square footage at a full run and played hide and seek with his toddler sister, in a display of unreserved enthusiasm.  There was so much more to explore.  Like my grandson in the larger house, prosperity enlarges the spaces in which we can run and hide.

There is nothing glorious about poverty nor am I implying that we should strive for a state of martyrdom.   But I believe that we, the church in North America, need to stop plugging our ears to the possibility that Jesus is speaking to us.  And on a more personal level, to you and me.  

Not in condemnation, but out of His great love

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