Pink Security

When Jerome and I were married, his mom gave me something that was precious to him a long time ago: a security blanket. A pink security blanket. This morning at 4 a.m. I woke up Jerome and told him that I had a blog idea. (Can you believe he tolerates this? Neither can I.)  I reminded him of his pink blankie and decided to push him a bit: "Do you suppose your parents were hoping for a girl?"

He laughed, of course, and said, "Even then I was man enough for pink.”(He also let me know in no uncertain terms that the blanket started off white.)

As the story goes, Jerome was so attached to his blanket that his mom had a terrible time getting him to give it to her so she could wash it. Eventually she had the idea to cut the blanket into pieces and wash one piece while he walked around with the other. This was the reason why his blanket, which we still have, is a mere 18 inches by 18 inches.

Jerome and his security blanket remind me a little about us and how we hang on to our past.

Every one of us, at one time or another, has had an issue that has brought us to our knees. For me, it was the tragic death of my brother. For you it may have been your parents’ divorce, your alcoholic relative, your own addiction, a serious ongoing medical issue, an absence of friends, depression, or lack of purpose. Every one of us has had an issue. No one seems to sail through life trouble free.

What really gets me is how we grasp on to these problems and hold on as if they were feeding us instead of holding us back. I’ll admit that these problems are really quite useful at times. When we have a hard time at work or make some kind of mistake relating to a friend or loved one, it’s handy to reach into our back pocket and pull out past hurts. Those hurts explain everything. They even vindicate us sometimes, helping us and everyone else to understand why we are the way we are.

The trouble with that is that we know we have a God who washes away even the dirtiest of secrets and deepest of sorrows. We know that when we come to Him in humility to express remorse for what we’ve done wrong or to express exhaustion for how we’ve suffered at the hands of someone else, He can wash all the gunk and grime off and give us new life. He can help us to start over, to mend friendships, to even change our own outlook. He is the God of miracles.

Yet in our confusing, human way, we hold tight. We give God the credit to forgive but not the control to take over.

Isn’t that getting old?

I wish that when we handed God our troubles, they would disappear from our memories, but they don’t. Jerome’s security blanket is packed away in our storage room in a Rubbermaid tub of childhood memories, but it’s just not as important as it once was. My brother’s suicide still haunts me at times, but more often than not, when I think of him, I think of his infectious laugh and all the ways I’m thankful he was in my life.

Instead of holding on to the tiny pink blanket of our fears, God wants us to reach out for Him, to hand our lives over. And that’s when new life begins.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” –2 Corinthians 5:17

Planting Seeds

This morning instead of going to our regular worship service at Bethany, my family hopped into the Suburban a little earlier than normal and headed to Newton Hills State Park for the 9:00 outdoor worship service. Even though we live so close, we only get to this worship service about once a summer.

Today was Biruk and Tadesse's first time ever visiting the state park, and as I settled down on the bench and got ready to listen to the beginning praise music, Biruk said, "Mom, who plant all these trees?" First, I simply answered that God had, but when Biruk pointed to all the cottonwood seeds floating down under the canopy of trees, I knew I needed to give a more complete answer. 

Earlier this week, Biruk and I had sat in our friend and pastor's office. Biruk had some really tough spiritual questions, questions I knew the answers to but didn't feel like I could explain adequately. So while Tadesse was at his daytime baseball practice, Biruk and I plopped ourselves down across from Pastor Al's desk, and Biruk peppered him with questions.

He asked him if salvation can be taken away, whether someone can ask Christ into his heart but then not be saved later because he had changed his mind. I had tried to explain that some people ask Christ into their hearts but don't really follow what the Bible says, so Al explained that there is a difference between a believer and a disciple of Christ. A believer understands and accepts that Christ is the Son of God and that He died for our sins. A disciple tries to live by the example that Christ set, and a disciple shares the good news with others. He went on to explain through the parable of the sower, how not everyone who hears about Jesus will come to know Him as their personal Savior. We figured out together that Biruk is concerned for those he left behind in Ethiopia, those who have maybe heard of Jesus but who don't know about forgiveness and grace and eternal life.

This morning as the worship service began, I noticed Biruk's arms waving in the air as he tried to catch cottonwood seeds. Inside I chuckled and reminded myself how nice it was to be at an outdoor service where distractions like this were not as—well, distracting. I saw Biruk toeing the mulch under us and gently placing one of those cottonwood seeds in the hole. Just a few seconds later, he noticed a tiny green weed growing out of the mulch, and he looked up at me, asking me if that was the tree he just planted.

I continue to be amazed at the faith lessons that God puts right in front of me.

As we walked up the trail following the service, I tried to continue Al's lesson: that even though all of these seeds were falling and how we can tell all sorts of people about Jesus, the seed has to be just right and the soil has to be just right in order for a tree to grow or for someone to accept Jesus into his heart. I explained that we are supposed to keep planting even though we really don't know if this particular one will grow.

Like Biruk, I tend to want the seeds I plant to sprout immediately and to bear fruit. I ask "How many days?" not aloud like Biruk does, but I do wonder. When will I be able to see the fruit of the small seed that I've tried to plant but that has been warmed, watered, fed by the Holy Spirit?

My little boy Biruk has a heart of...believe it or not, I was going to write gold, but my fingers typed...God. And that's true. Through the conversation with Al and subsequent conversations, I finally realized that this eight-year-old wants to go back to Ethiopia sooner rather than later. He wants to tell Ahlem (his mom) and Yeshiwork (his sister) about Jesus Christ so that they can go to heaven someday. His words? "Mom, my mom save me. Now I need to go back and save her."

When I was eight, I was playing with kittens and trying to make forts and riding bike around the section. This little boy is being a missionary.

I am being blessed right here, right now by watching this boy grow, learn, and bloom. Thank you, God, for the seedlings You've planted right in my home. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it.