Branches and Trees

Musings on Marriage

Month: October 2021

Choose Your Frame

October 27, 2021 / / 4 Comments

Dear Daughters,

About 70 years ago Grandpa had a mid-air collision while he was a young pilot living in California.  Because of the G.I. bill he was able to take lessons for free, so had been training for his pilot’s license.  One day Grandpa was flying quite low to the runway when another small plane, flying a little higher than his, turned unexpectedly into Grandpa’s path and cut off his tail in the process.  Grandpa’s plane flipped completely over and landed on its nose, leaving him hanging in his seatbelt.  He loosened his belt, dropped to the ground and walked away unharmed.

There were five different people who saw the accident.  Guess how many different opinions came when they were questioned about what happened?  Yes, five different opinions of the same accident.

It happens all the time, for any situation, statement or news report.  An incident occurs and every person perceives it with their own bias or prior knowledge and experience.  How we frame our circumstances definitely defines the way we live. 

This morning we woke up to a power outage lasting three hours. No warm breakfast or hot tea – a minor inconvenience for us, and it passed quickly.  But I’m sure it was a cause for extreme consternation to others who had things to do and places to go.  I immediately thought of the people in the Dominican Republic and other countries like it.  In the DR people plan on outages every day because different quadrants of the city are allowed so many hours of electricity each day and they simply allow for that fact, grateful when it is working.   

There are many different frames available for everything that happens to us.  We can frame a situation so we become the victim.  We can frame another happening so we are the hero.  Or we can frame a circumstance portraying us as innocent. The framing options never end…

Do you remember Paul, the guy who Jesus appeared to on the road to Damascus?  He regularly had his plans foiled and his journeys often included unexpected encounters and directions.  In fact, during the end of his life he and some friends set out to Rome, eagerly planning to spread the good news to the people there.  Instead, he ended up in prison, being chained night and day to the guards keeping watch over him.  In this situation Craig Groeschel (in Winning the War in Your Mind) describes the choices of how Paul could respond:

#1) Lament the fact of his imprisonment because it wasn’t on his agenda

#2) Rejoice because Paul trusted that God’s plan was better than his

If he had chosen option #1 he could have said:

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me really sucks.  I wanted to spread the good news through preaching to government officials, but that did not happen.  As a result of this hell I’ve been through I have decided prayer doesn’t work, and I am never going back to church again.

But because he trusted that God’s plan was better than his he chose option #2 and said:

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News.  For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ.  And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear.  Philippians 1:12-14

In effect, Paul was saying, I had a plan but God had a better plan.  These guards are listening to the gospel and they in turn tell others the good news.  So it’s all good, and I’ll just enjoy.

Paul was the GOAT (greatest of all time) framer of circumstances.  He found joy in every situation, in fact he is the one who wrote,

I have learned to be content in all circumstances…I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11-13

I think the bottom line in framing our lives is knowing that we have no control over what happens to us, but we do have control over how we will frame it.  If we trust that God loves us and has the best plan for our lives, and the Spirit of God lives within us, we need not worry or fret when hard stuff happens.  Yes, we can mourn and lament but ultimately, we do have the choice to reframe every situation.

Apparently, Grandpa simply framed his accident as a learning experience because a few decades later he built his own plane and took to the sky again.

Choose well and trust God with your life.

Love, Mom

Zig Zag Lives

October 20, 2021 / / 4 Comments

Dear Daughters,

My favorite subject as a sophomore in high school was geometry.  One of the basic axioms I learned was the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and it is indeed true – in geometry. 

But as you may have noticed in life, we don’t travel from Point A (birth) to Point B(death) in a straight-up-the-mountain line.  There are high points, low points and lots of zig-zags around the in-between points.

Since Dad and I have been married we have moved 12 times within four states -that’s a lot of zigging and zagging geographically.  Some people seem to be able to learn the things God has prepared for them while living in the same house, others of us need to go from place to place, learning the important lessons of life.

I used to think about the Israelites wandering from place to place in the wilderness for 40 years and thought that’s a really inefficient way for God to get His people from here to there.  They could have traveled the distance in 11 days, but it took them 40 years, crisscrossing the desert.  But after reading about all their grumbling, complaining and general discontent with everything going on in their lives- even in the midst of free food and clothes that never wore out – I began to understand I was much like them. 

In my earlier years, I would often complain how things in my life were not going as I would have liked.  Moving here, moving there, meeting friends only to leave and start over again. I was lonely, didn’t have a long-term friend, and my potential was not being fulfilled… or so I thought.

I used to pray, asking God to change my circumstances so I could have a peaceful life.  If I was ever in a place remotely resembling a wilderness (when people wouldn’t do what I thought they should) I would try quickly to change them or conditions around me to suit my preferences.

Thank God that during my wilderness years I have learned that I am the only person I can change.  Finally, my prayer is not to avoid or escape the hard times but to trust Him, knowing that because He loves me He has promised to walk with me through every hardship.

Of course, we have to understand that the number one goal of God as he works in our lives is molding and shaping us to be like Him.  Specifically, He is making us more patient and kind, less boastful and proud, more joyful and long-suffering, less selfish and impatient.  Character, to God, is much more important than money, prestige and fame – which of course is completely upside down to what our culture teaches us.

And what does He use to cause these qualities to appear in us?  Hard times of isolation and stress.  In tough times – instead of running from them – it’s best to press into God, lean on Him and trust Him to lead through and beyond to the other side.

In God’s economy, a zigzag line is the shortest distance between two points. 

 Bill Lawrence

God has each of us in a unique place, at just the right moment of time, and in the exact family that is best for us.  Of course it’s hard, everywhere is hard, but we were not put on this earth simply to have a joy fest. 

The definition of a contented man is he who enjoys the scenery along the detour.

Kim Baar

I was walking outside the other day enjoying the beautiful sunshine when I heard some whirring wings above my head.  I looked up and saw a large flock of starlings.  These birds were doing acrobatics as if they had trained and practiced for months.  They would swoop straight up vertically for a short time then perform a circular pattern and immediately straighten out and fly as if on a racetrack.  Then just as I thought they would continue out of sight they swooped down for a bit and returned toward me as if they were performing an intricately choreographed routine simply for my pleasure. 

How did each one of those tiny birds know when the group was going to do their maneuvers?  I just stood there amazed as I watched them perform for me, then as they finally flew away to give someone else a fascinating show. 

When I consider the remarkable wisdom and creativity of God to gift small, seemingly insignificant birds with the ability to fly such intricate drills, I marvel.  Then I think, if Jesus choreographs their lives and flight patterns so perfectly I can rest assured that He is doing the same for me and you –  zig zags and all.

Love, Mom

Known, Seen, Loved

October 12, 2021 / / 5 Comments

Dear Daughters,

Yesterday I had a terrible, horrible, very bad, no good day.  I woke up feeling physically and emotionally fragile – which happens every now and again.  You know the feeling?  It was cloudy out, actually a pelting rainstorm as I was driving to meet with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while.  Somehow I didn’t get the memo of the change of location, so after driving 20 minutes to the normal meeting spot, a kind man told me the meeting had been moved. He gave me the new address, so I walked out to the car and promptly fell apart, weeping.

Really?  Just because I didn’t hear about the change?  How immature and silly of me, I told myself.  I vacillated between giving up and going home or seeking out the new meeting spot. In the end I put on my big girl panties and ventured out in the storm again, going another 15 minutes in the torrential storm to find the changed location at which I finally arrived.  All the way there I was feeling forgotten, unseen, alone and back to my 13-year-old self when I had been left alone because of a misunderstanding of a meeting place in another state, decades ago.

How quicky one single trigger can bring us back to less than desirable thoughts of what has happened in the past – feeling lost and alone, thinking no one cares, or worse that someone deliberately left us out.

When I finally arrived to the true meeting spot, I was greeted warmly by my friends, but the topic of conversation (in my head) circled around to more times of rejection in the past – some deliberate, others only perceived -so I fought back tears most of the time.  At the end I planned to quickly jet out the door when no one was looking, and my plan worked…almost.

Michelle caught me and asked if I was OK.  Of course, I was not and I wanted to lie saying, Yes, I’m fine, just feeling quiet today.  But, since I’m not a very good liar, when I opened my mouth the tears started streaming again.  I told her what had happened – the miscommunication, the perceived hurt and all the other thoughts swirling in my mind.  Then in her kind, caring voice she said

You know those are lies, right?

Right.  Of course, they’re lies.  Sheesh, I know about lies from the enemy, voices from my past, I have been teaching it to others for years.  So how did I get caught in this downward spiral of self-disdain, loathing and hopelessness? 

It’s embarrassing to forget everything I know and give in to the emotions of the moment, but somedays it happens so unexpectedly and sneakily and I don’t know when the floodgate opened, but the gang’s all there.

So when I finally returned home, I cried out to God to remind me that I am Known, Seen and Loved – whether I feel like it or not.  I know I cannot let others’ opinions of me be the final word, especially when those words were spoken so long ago.  I need to go back even farther in time and listen to the words my Father God tells me:

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 54:10

I have loved you with an everlasting love.  With unfailing love, I have drawn you to myself.

Jeremiah 31:3

The clamor of voices from the media and others around you, telling you you’re not smart enough, pretty enough, or enough in any way are simply distractions to keep us from the simple truth that we are loved just as we are. 

Love from people is good, but what happens when they leave us, offend us or walk away?  We will all be betrayed in some way some day by a human – or by many humans.  It’s just what humans do because we are flawed.  Only the perfect loving Savior, Jesus Christ, can supply us with all we need.  To be Known, Seen and Loved.  

We are not what we do.

We are not what we have.

We are not what others think of us.

Coming home is claiming the Truth.

I am a beloved child of God.

We no longer need to beg permission from the world to exist.

Henri Nouwen

Love, Mom

A Busy God Box

October 5, 2021 / / 2 Comments

Dear Daughters,

A few weeks ago I wrote about the God Box – the act of physically casting our cares and worries on Jesus.  The idea is to get a little box and some small pieces of paper and write the names of the people or things you worry about on each piece.  Then one by one, place those worries in the God Box and leave them for Him to take care of.  But…if you start worrying about something listed on one of those papers, take it out and tell God you don’t trust Him with that specific person or situation and you will worry about it again – thank you very much. This is Craig Groeschel’s very practical idea from his book Winning the War in Your Mind.

Well, one of my dear friends who tends to worry more than she would like, actually decided to get a box and fill it with her worries.  I was so pleased to hear about it, but a few days later she texted some pictures lamenting that it had become a busy God box.  She would throw a name in but would soon find herself worrying about the very things and people she had just put in:

What about this?

What about that?

But what happens when…

So the lid came off, the paper came out, and the worrying would start again.  But, of course, that action in itself feels a bit silly because then it becomes blatantly obvious that our trust is waning.  So, the next step is to put the paper back in the box and give it back to God – where it belongs.

Out of the God Box, into the God Box.  Trust again.

Out of the Box, into the Box.  Trust some more.

It can get to be rather exhausting putting it in and taking it out, but our Father is so patient with us as we learn to trust over and over.

We have absolutely no control over anyone but ourself, no control over any circumstance which comes our way, but we do have control over how we will respond to whatever happens in our life.

When Jesus walked the earth, He repeatedly reminded us that He cares for the sparrows, the lilies of the field, all the creatures of the world.  If He cares for the grass of the field, which is here today and gone tomorrow, will He not care for you who is so much more important than the grass of the field or the birds of the air?  So why not cast your cares on Him?  Why not write down what keeps us awake at night, what consumes our thoughts with anxiety from the minute we wake up in the morning – and place it in the God Box? 

We were not created to carry the heavy yoke the world places on us or that we place on ourselves.  Only our Creator God is able to carry it all.

As Erma Bombeck says:

Worrying is like a rocking chair.  It gives you something to do, but doesn’t get you anywhere.

Sometimes it seems that our slips of paper in the God Box are turning yellow with age, but just when we think all is lost and God has forgotten us, the answer will come.  And never a moment too soon – or too late.  It may not be the answer we want, but it will inevitably be something greater than what we can imagine. Plus an added bonus – we will be able to live in peace.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations for ever and ever, AMEN. 

Ephesians 3:20-21

Love, Mom

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