My Heart Smote Me

I am not one to vent about a company's lack of customer service. I don't get bent out of shape if they bring me mashed potatoes vs. the baked one I ordered or if my steak isn't cooked exactly right, or even if they skim a few minutes off a massage appointment. I don't post negative reviews on Facebook or other forms of social media, because it goes against my beliefs. While I do believe that we should get what we pay for and don't want to see anyone taken advantage of, I think this issue come down to your faith . I tend to believe that if I don't receive what I am supposed to from whom I should receive it, my Father will make up the difference. He always does.

Unfortunately, I was not myself yesterday. I was tired and having experienced a throbbing pain in my leg all day I was also a bit grumpy. I needed a "service" performed in a timely matter, but I may not have been your ideal customer. That being said, I went to a nail salon to have my gel nails removed. I had only had them on for a short while, but I just felt like having cutting them short and going natural. I explained to the male manicurist (who was young enough to be my son) what I wanted. He disagreed with me and in his distinctly Vietnamese accent said, "No...No..Your hand so petite and so pretty. You need keep your nail. You have beautiful hand." I continued to disagree, but I was given a seat while he finished working with another customer.

To make a long story short, in the course of the events in this experience, I was moved to three different chairs, made to wait an unusually long time to be served--even having a very young, very rude girl be allowed to go ahead of me because "she had to get to work". I was becoming quickly agitated and contemplating leaving. To add to the frustration, I was having to convince my manicurist to provide the very service for which I had come. My manicurist guy could tell I was aggravated. He was becoming nervous trying to quickly finish with the girl who was allowed to go ahead of me and would frequently say, "How you doing over there? You okay? You need anything? Water? Coffee? Just one more minute." I would affirm with the right words, but my body and my face were all the more loudly saying the opposite. He was hearing quite loudly that I was displeased, and frankly (though sadly to admit) I was happy he knew how annoyed I was.

It was in this less than flattering moment that my very patient but quite relentless Father said, "Lisa, look at him!" So, I replied, "God, I have looked at him...for a long time now...too long." (God lets me be me while He is perfecting me) God said, "Lisa, look at him. Look at his face. Do you see his little furrowed brow? Do you see the sweat on his temples? Do you see how frantically  he is working doing repetitive and laborious motions? How old do you think he is, Lisa? How many hours has he worked, today? Has he had lunch? Will have dinner anytime soon? Where is family? Where is his mom? Look at HIM the person not the manicurist, Lisa!"

As I looked at him I realized that he looked younger than my Tyler. I often feel so sorry for my son and how hard works. I realized this was someones son, too. I noticed that though he was a fine looking fellow he had a rather large mole in a prominent and awkward place on his face. I wondered if his peers gave him grief about that...or worse yet if girls did. My heart broke at the thought of him dealing with any negativity from that. He continued to sheepishly look up at me trying to get me to dim the intensity on my glares. It was at one of his nervous glances my way that my heart smote me. I felt a lump in my throat and tears welling up in my eyes. I saw him! God allowed me to love this boy for this moment with some of the love that He had for him.

When it was finally my turn, I began conversing with the young gentleman. He was not able to go to college, because he worked in the nail salon eleven hours a day, six days a week. He told me how awful it was to smell the intense fumes from the nail solutions everyday. I had never thought about smelling that strong smell for 66 hours a week. As it was approaching closing time, more customers continued to enter. I would watch him glance up at them, blink his eyes and quietly say, "Oh no." I finally asked what was wrong. He apologized, but like any young boy he wanted to go home after a long day and do something fun. He realized he would be working more than an eleven hour day, today, because all of these customers would have to be served before he could leave. I asked if he had eaten. He explained that he was hungry but would grab either chicken nuggets or a double cheeseburger on the way home...if he was ever able to leave. I saw him! I even loved him in a way that only God can cause to happen between two strangers. I prayed for him under my breath.

When I left the salon, I grabbed a double cheeseburger and brought it back to him, and said, "As a mother of a son about your age, I would be furious that he had worked that many hours without taking a break to eat." He said, "Oh my God! Thank you!! Thank you!" (Little did he know how correct he was in his proclamation. It was "My God" that did this for him...and just so ya know! I did my nails his way...and I love them!!

“Your greatness is measured by your kindness; your education and intellect by your modesty; your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices, and your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others.”

—William J.H. Boetcker

You Have Naming Rights

This past Sunday, Pastor Steve ended his sermon series "Death to Selfie". It was bitter-sweet to have such an awesome series end, but I am equally excited about the upcoming one. The final message was "You Have Naming Rights". As an Assembly of God's preacher's kid, I am familiar with this concept, and I believe it to my core; however, sometimes we all need reminding.

In ancient Israel, Fathers had the right to name their children. They could even supercede a name given by the mother as we see when Rachel named Benjamin (son of my strength or son of my right hand of blessing) as Ben-oni (son of my sorrow)--Genesis 35:18. We do not know how much time past between Rachel's naming her son such a sad name and Jacob's overriding that name with that of a glorious one, yet we know it happened. Rachel, who died during childbirth to her beloved much wanted son, Benjamin, was naming her situation as it was. God gives us naming rights. We can call a situation as we see it with our natural eyes or we can call it as we would like it to be. Romans 4:17 we can call dead things, dormat things, non-existant things into being "As it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations." Abraham acted in faith when he stood in the presence of God, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that don't yet exist." We are often tempted to define our moments by our sorrow. Life loves to label itself by something we've lost, but Benjamin knew out of sorrow is birthed strength!

Show me man who is strong, and I will show you the same man who was weak. Show me a man who loves deeply, and I will show you that same man who was unloved. Show me a broken place, and I will show you a rebirth in that same place! Oh yes, we have naming rights! And yes! Jacob knew that that boy which cost him the love of his life (for Rachel is the only one we ever hear him declaring his love for), was going to be his greatest blessing! We understand fully that at any given moment in our life something is being birthed while something else is dying. Change is inevitable. We cannot determine all the circumstances that touch our lives, but we do have full authority to call them what we will! We can call them a blessing and watch that blessing unfold or we can call them as we see them! The world would say the latter is more noble. No pretense, no frills...and actually no investment...just call it as you see it. Unfortunately, our scope is limited! So, I'll call it as God sees it every time! I will choose to speak life instead of death! For God has a way of selecting and transforming what the world rejects! He assures us that that which we cannot see is more real than that which is in our face everyday! 2 Corinthians 4:18 "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

When Jacob buried Rachel and refused to allow life to define that moment as a moment of loss, he entered the situation as one weak fallible man, but he exited it the Father of nations...my father! Genesis 35: 20 Over her tomb JACOB set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel's tomb. 21 ISRAEL MOVED ON AGAIN and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder. He entered as Jacob the trickster, the one who wasn't enough in his own right! He exited as Israel (the one who prevails with God)! Yes, we have naming rights! Hallelujah!

Three months ago, I could not have guessed that I would have lost my father and my hero, my best bud colleague, my kitchen and my gallbladder, as well as, having to venture through some other hurtful personal situations; but God knew! I could name these situations as they make me feel, but I am choosing to call them a blessing. I am enjoying watching God make this Jacob into an Israel! I am relishing the stirring in my spirit about what is most important. I am seeing things die, but I am seeing things born anew! Sometimes the call to follow Christ is great. The cost to be used comes in our payment of being broken. The cost to love deeply is to risk being hurt. To allow a needy world to smell His sweet fragrance, the petals of the flower must be bruised and torn. The payoff, though, is well worth it!

Yes! We have naming rights! Call this situation in your life as God calls it and see what might things he does!

How Much Land Does a Man Need?

Ironically as I stood in the graveyard looking for my father's grave tonight, I recalled Leo Tolstoy's short story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" I had often explored this story with my high schoolers and enjoyed their discoveries and discussions. The conclusion of the story is that all a man really needs is enough land in which to be buried. By the end of the story, we often felt so superior to Pahom and his greedy attempts to acquire more land. Although, tonight rather than feeling smug about a grave plot, I was desperately searching and needing to find this special piece of land that housed something so precious to me.

It seems like such a simple thing. You pick out a grave marker. You pay for it. It is made. Then it is "installed". Yet it has been almost two months and twenty one days since my dad's funeral...and still no marker. My mom has called several times. We are expecting it any day, and apparently this is normal. Being a novice at losing someone close to me, I have no idea what is normal. Yet there I stood searching for a patch of land that meant more to me than any other patch of land in the world at that moment, and not being able to find the exact spot.

Leaving work late, today, but still finding it light outside at a little before 8:00 p.m., I had such a need to be near my dad. I know that he is not actually in the grave where his body resides, but I just had a need to be close to where his hands, face, hair, arms and all the physical things I remembered about him were. I needed to tell him that I still miss him everyday and that I am ready for this to be easier. I needed to tell him that I was having a simple outpatient surgical procedure in two days and I so longed to hear him pray for me before, during and after this. I wanted to hear him say, "Lisa, you're gonna be okay! Daddy loves you!" The next best thing was to be near where we had last left him...at least where we had left the house that contained this beautiful man.

As I entered the cemetery, I parked my car where I had parked it before. I parked it where my mom and I had parked just the day after dad died when we gave the cemetery approval to dig the grave on his lot. The same place the limousine had parked when we walked to Dad's graveside. Yet it was such blur. The green funeral home tent is long gone now. The grave is not so fresh, so there I stood wandering, searching, walking from grave marker, to grave marker. I was seeing the names of so many strangers that were someone's loved one, and I was never finding the name Ronnie Harstin that I searched frantically to find. Surely, his marker was ready by now.

It's bizarre how your mind can play tricks on you in moments like this. Was it real? Was I really in this graveyard several months ago burying my dad. Good Lord, there are many days when this feels like a dream. Maybe it really was? But no...I vividly remember holding my mom's hand at this graveside, wiping my daughter's tears, listening as the ministers tried to give us a word of hope and thinking how befitting the casket was as it was called "Knight". He was my first knight in shining armor and was so brave and dear!

After a few moments of panic and desperation, I found his spot. Ironically, the marker below his is someone named Gladys. His mother was named Gladys, and she adored her boy, the baby boy of ten children. This seemed fitting to me also that Gladys would be buried near him! I did what I needed to do at this little plot of land, tonight. I found some relief and some solace after allowing my heart to break for a moment.

My dad didn't really need the grave plot, I guess; but I needed it. I needed it tonight. I needed it for him. I needed it for me. So how much land does a man need Mr. Tolstoy? He needs how much ever it takes to help someone else. He needs how much ever it takes to help another person be okay. Tonight, it was a 6 foot rectangle, but tomorrow it may be a plot of land for a school or a hospital or a playground. Nope! Mr. Tolstoy, I love you and I get your point; but this question isn't as simple for me, tonight, as you make it.

Promises, Parking Lots and Patriarchs

You’ve been there if you walked with the Lord any amount of time! What I am alluding to is that still small voice that prompts you often in ways that aren’t obvious at first, but always leads to something amazing. This was the case for me again this week. I have so enjoyed the sermon series at our church, “Death to Selfie”. Watching the failures, victories and humanness of Jacob as God transformed him into something remarkable has been refreshing.

The message this past Sunday which continued this topic was “When God Shows up in the Middle of Nowhere: Jacob’s Bethel experience”. Bethel was originally called Luz. Luz whose meaning is “Almond Tree”, according to Strong’s Concordance, was in the middle of no where. Yet, this is exactly where God chose to reveal Himself to Jacob. As the story in Genesis 28 goes, God was present in Luz but Jacob didn’t realize this until his amazing “dream encounter”. Jacob had spent his life wheeling and dealing. He bargained, tricked, supplanted and was a heel grabber (as his name implies) by trying to grab and grasp at all he could as a means to get ahead. You even see him making a deal with God in this instance in Gen. 28:20-22

Jacob vowed a vow: “If God stands by me and protects me on this

journey on which I’m setting out, keeps me in food and clothing, and brings

me back in one piece to my father’s house, this God will be my God. This stone

that I have set up as a memorial pillar will mark this as a place where God lives.

And everything you give me, I’ll return a tenth to you.”

The short of the story is that God did take Jacob up on this deal and proved to be more than faithful to him throughout his life. This God encounter caused Jacob to rename the City of Luz to the City of Bethel (House of God--a place of Remembrance). Many years later, when life was crazy for Jacob and after he had experienced great success and some substantial heartache, he returned to Bethel. When life becomes so complicated and our progress so obstructed that we can’t remember why we are where we are or what we should do next, a trip to Bethel is in order! Sometimes we have to go back to go forward. The Patriarch Jacob (who was renamed Israel...but that’s another story) knew this truth!! On his return to Bethel now a blessed but aged multimillionaire who walked with a limp as the result of another God encounter, Jacob/Israel was a new man. He had learned to rely on God rather than upon his own devices and his knack for tricking his way up the chain. He no longer strutted into the room, but rather walked with an obvious limp. This time, as he prayed at Bethel, there was no wheeling and dealing with the God of the Universe. There was no negotiating a deal. Jacob/Israel had learned that God was more than faithful. He had learned that God was more than enough all by Himself. This time, Jacob/Israel merely worshipped God. He had discovered that when God shows up in the middle of your nowhere that God was actually “now here” all along! (NowHere)!

So this was my Sunday message, and as we left the service, I had every intention of posting something along these lines on Facebook as I had done after many other services including the one prior to this. However, I decided I would blog about it in my “Blog/Diary” instead and post it that night; but alas that still small voice that prompts you was gently nudging me in another direction! Yes, it was confusing, but I felt the Lord prompting me to hold off. I didn’t know why, and I was inspired to write at that moment. Why wait? I was afraid I would lose my passion as the cares of the upcoming week began to implode upon me. Yet I have walked with Him long enough to understand that it is better to follow His leading. I now know why we had a “slow down” plan. God had every intention of giving me my own Bethel experience, but I would not know this until later on in the week.

It was almost twenty-four years ago that I stood in the parking lot of Gaston Community College with a hope and a promise that if I worked hard and stayed the course, I could realize my dream of becoming a teacher. Just four days earlier, I had walked across the stage of North Gaston High School and all my friends were celebrating at the beach, but not this strong-willed, determined scholar. No! I was getting a head start at Gaston College so that I could transfer those classes to Belmont Abbey where I would be pursuing my dream of teaching. I was the top finalist from Gaston Memorial Hospital for a radiology degree and had a full ride! I turned this down not once but even the second year in a row when they were starting a new cohort and called once more to persuade me to join. I was flattered that they were so impressed, but I was going to be a teacher--so I stayed the course. I was young, but decided to wed a teacher. He was smart, kind and charming! He brought home a meager salary that we learned to stretch to meet our needs. We made many sacrifices in our two bedroom mill home and one automobile family life. I worked part-time, went to school full time, and shortly after marriage, my husband and I became pregnant. It was all a lot of work, but we never gave up! I was going to be a teacher, one day!

The years past quickly and life took shape with many realized dreams. So, there I stood in that Gaston Community College parking lot on August 7, 2014 a Gaston County Instructional Technology Facilitator with a B.A. in elementary education, an MEd. in Special Education for Gifted Students, and having obtained numerous certifications. I was moments away from being one of the final Keynote speakers at The Gaston County Schools Teaching and Learning Conference where I, a teacher, would speak to other teachers. I would be speaking in the auditorium where twenty one years earlier I graduated with an Associates of Arts degree with a promise and the hope to be a teacher one day and with my Belmont Abbey acceptance letter in plain view on my coffee table! This Gaston College graduation was a graduation that included carrying my precious son across the stage with me...inside of me! He was to be born in two months! This spectacle got me a few moments of fame in the local Gaston Gazette!

That Gaston College parking lot houses many memories for me. It was onto the pavement of this parking lot that a nervous North Gaston senior stepped as a member of the North Gaston High School Homecoming Court and walked toward the recording studio to have her homecoming speech recorded so that it could be played at their school assembly. It was in this parking lot that I had my heart shattered by a guy I thought was the love of my life only to realize God had a better plan. It was in this same parking lot that I became violently ill thinking I had the flu, only to discover I was actually carrying one of the greatest loves of my life just underneath my heart. It was in this parking lot that God answered my prayer after class one day. I needed gas money. I only had mere change and wasn’t sure I would make it to my grandmother’s where I needed to go. I prayed asking God to either help my car make it all the way to my sweet grandma's or to help me find change on the parking lot. He chose the latter. I had more change than I had asked for. This was no small miracle to me in those days...and the memory actually still moves my heart in these present days!

So again, here I was on August 7, 2014 at my Bethel experience. The realization of a promise in a parking lot! A promise that was delivered by The Patriarch of Patriarchs! When I arrived this day, I had to park my car in "Egypt" since there were so many people at Gaston College. I began the long haul to the prominent, newly renovated auditorium. I almost made it to the door when I realized I had left some very prized construction paper, red ball replicas in my car. They were important to my presentation. I was frustrated at the thoughts of retracing my steps and making the same haul again, but then I heard that same still small voice, “Lisa, don’t rush this! This is our moment. It’s just as much mine as yours!” I began thanking God for His amazing faithfulness and his lavish gifts, I glanced down at my garnet college graduation ring from Belmont Abbey that I had worn by happenstance. I had intended on wearing the smoky quartz that matched my brown outfit until I saw a 5 garnet set from my grandmother. Feeling nostalgic, I wore her ring that I always pair with the garnet class ring. In that moment the prize that was the proof of a promise fulfilled sat proudly upon my hand. How could I have known all those years ago that one day I would be a teacher who teaches  teachers and gets to speak to them in the auditorium of my old college. Yes! The journey with Christ is amazing! We follow Him because He loves us and because at each Bethel experience we are reminded that this is the most exciting life of all!!

Can’t wait to see what God will pull out of his closet for me next!! Love this video!

Bibby's Closet