Sticky Faith

This past month I was creating a heart wall mural of our wonderful community; pictures of the many wonderful memories and things God has led us in over the years. But mostly it was all about the people. I got the guys from the men’s shed to make wooden tiles, the designer in our midst to set the photos up, someone to paint, and others with accuracy and precision to stick them up so that they were perfectly placed to form the shape of a large heart on the wall. 

It was a project close to my heart and when the last tile was placed on the wall with double sided industrial tape, which the hardware man swore would hold them there securely, it was a sight to see.  It was so beautiful; the colour, the memories, the joy, the visual, the delight we shared as we stepped back and saw the heart and even more joy as it drew us closer to see the smiles, the faces, those with us and those who have moved on, the many who have called us HOME at least for a while.

 

Finished Mural

So, you can imagine my distress, when I arrived the next morning to discover that the tape didn't stick and many tiles had fallen to the ground.  Of course, the tape didn't stick to the wall, but it seemed to have no trouble sticking to the floor and sticking some tiles to each other. And so many were ruined, ripped by sticking to each other, dented and chipped by the fall. I was so saddened by the visual. 

So, I did what anyone would/ should do … I sought to find something stronger that would stick them to the wall. The next thing the hardware man recommended was liquid nails. It seemed to work better but each day I would come back to find more tiles had fallen off, were ruined, bent and ripped. I did have spares but they were running out, and how sad it was to see the beautiful photos (people) who had fallen and were ripped and couldn't be put back up again. Someone suggested we leave a few spaces free to remind us of those who are yet to join us, so we left 4 spaces.

Well, a month has gone and this weekend I entered the building to find 4 more had dropped off, even with liquid nails. It really affected me. No-one else seemed to notice, dare I say “care” that day. I suspect they knew that I would fix it, eventually. I know others are not as visually stimulated as me, but I am currently left with trying to find a solution to making sure that none of the tiles fall off again. 

I wonder, will anyone else notice?  Will anyone care enough to ask how they can help to make the tiles stick? I wonder what will eventually be sticky enough so they never fall off again? I wonder if there are some that need to come off and stay off? I wonder if it is like the FAITH journey …. many start but all do not stay? I wonder how sticky our methods/message must be. Or are there some people who will never let it stick? I wonder who we are to listen to for advice on how to make things stick? I wonder what substandard glue we are using today, that was never, ever going to work but we keep using it, over and over again and hope that the result changes? 

So much to wonder about. So much I don’t know. But I tell you what I do know. I will not give up until I find out how to stick those tiles on the wall so they don't come off. I will replace the bent and broken ones and even put some of the broken, chipped ones back up again, because they continue to tell the story. And maybe that is all we are asked to do … continue to tell the story, seeking to celebrate the joys and people, accepting everyone, chipped and bent and even broken, and keep seeking to refine the methods/message so that it sticks as well as it can. We must also accept that they are some who just won't allow themselves to stick and we simply must miss them dearly and love them all the same. 

What do we do with our scars?

Just recently my husband accidentally burnt me with a cigar. He doesn't smoke them often, but when you are in Cuba it is hard not to have a go. In his haste of looking at things in a market we were in, he forgot he was given a cigar and that it was in his hand. He turned toward me and the cigar went straight into my arm.  It really hurt and I walked around the rest of the day with an ice cold water bottle on my arm. But we did laugh. It was such an accident and he felt so bad, I could only see the funny side of it, knowing my husband. I took a photo of it and sent it to the kids straight away.

He felt so bad he kept asking me how I was and it was fun to play on it a bit. After a few hours it was fine, but it was going to leave a scar for sure.  

For the next 7 days afterward, it was still looking really sore, so I started putting pure vitamin E oil on it each night. It is amazing stuff and each morning I would wake up and couldn't believe the difference in the healing simply in one night. 

I joked with Dave, that I considered leaving it and not putting the healing balm on it, so I would be scarred for life and when people asked what it was, I would have a good story of my husband burning me with a cigar. Or worse I could play on it and get his sympathy and guilt for the rest of my life with a scar like that.  At one point it was looking better and then I bumped it and it started to bleed again, that was a good time to let David know what he done to me….. again. 

But, instead after 3 weeks it was completely gone, simple by putting the right healing balm on it each night. 

After 35 years of being together, believe me there are deeper scars we both carry, more painful than a cigar burn. It made me think about the scars we carry on the inside and the outside and how quickly they can become the story we hold onto for all the wrong reasons. 

It is a choice what we do with our burns or the painful experiences. We can carry them like an open, painful scar, in order to guilt or shame the one who caused it. We can choose for it to become our victim story, the battle scars we get to tell anyone who will listen, for sympathy or attention. We can chose to use the battle scars as excuses to not venture out and try new things as they are dangerous. We can choose to look at our scars and hold anger and bitterness, that if someone can do that to me, then I can do it to someone else. 

Or we can choose to seek the healing balm that not only takes the pain away, but in some cases can make all things new as if it never happened. 

For many of our deep inner scars it will take more that "Pure Vitamin E oil", but I do know that with the right healing balm all things are possible. The hardest part is the choice, to walk towards healing and not in the other direction. I want to say that there is even more that is possible. When the healing has become so complete that it is not just healed, but has become something more beautiful. Like the refiners fire, more beauty is found only once something has gone through the fire and come out the other end.  But it doesn't have to stop there either, for when that healed scar is so strong it is able to help others who are wounded, it becomes a gift and privilege. This has been my experience over the last 20 years with many of my scars, although I have many more I am working on.  

The greatest gift is that we don't have to do this alone. Christ has been my healing balm, for the deep inner hurts that simply come with life. But I know that the key on my part is to CHOOSE to lean into Him and be willing to use the correct healing balm and to use it regularly. That is why Dave and I can joke about a cigar burn, because we know the real healing power of Jesus’ grace and love and forgiveness in our own lives and in our marriage and it is truly a gift. 

So what do you do with your scars? 

Are our Churches/Children just “seedless watermelons”?

I have always been fascinated with trees. They are so beautiful and majestic.  Each country has its  own unique trees and Jamaica is no exception.

I was stopped by an impressive tree. It was large and strong, the roots were clearly deep as well as coming out in all directions. There was a smaller plant right beside it, being shadowed by it and growing up healthy and strong beside it. The large tree had beautiful reddish fruit on it, which I soon found out was a “Jamaican apple”. 

There are so many things I learn from trees and nature. God challenges me every time with new things. I was given the apple to eat and it was very different to an apple in Australia. It was soft and almost pear/peach like in texture, but it was white and fluffy. As I was enjoying the fruit, I noticed it had a large hard seed in the middle.

Psalm 1 says “but those whose delight is in the Law of the Lord, and who mediates on His Law day and night, that person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season.”

Leadership, parenting … these are challenging things. They require much delighting in God’s word and His truth to be able to yield fruit. How I long to yield fruit! As I ate the apple, being such a new experience, I loved the reminder of how nourishing fruit can be and how precious it is to be able to bear fruit for others to enjoy. How important it is that we as leaders and parents actually produce fruit that sustains others, that we focus on how we attract and sustain those we lead, and make sure our fruit is appetising enough that they want to eat it. Which is hard these days, as there are so many other options than a healthy piece of fruit, which are available all the time, not just in season.  You know how horrible it can be when you eat fruit that is out of season, and that just can’t compete with the many other sweet and now artificial options that our children and people would much rather eat than healthy and natural fruit. 

But this big large seed that I was left with, caught my attention. It was hard and strong and significant. Of course you can’t eat it, so we often throw it away after eating the fruit. Well, at least in the western world we do. So, as I was about to throw it away, I realised that this is such an important part of the fruit.  Without the seed, there is not new and sustaining life. The seed needs to be replanted for it to grow. 

It is one thing for me as a leader or parent to delight in the Lord so that I may grow and yield fruit, but if that fruit is not then taken, consumed and replanted, its enjoyment and value only lasts for moments. Very quickly we find we want more and more of the light fluffy flesh without understanding the fruit has a seed of replenishing life that is important to be replanted for life to continue. 

It made me consider in Western Society how much we love

the “Seedless Watermelon”, a recent human creation to make the fruit easy to consume. When we serve fruit platters we cut out all the seeds so it is all easily consumable and looking ascetically pleasing. I know I love mandarins, (which are small oranges), but I specifically look for the ones with no seeds because the number of seeds in a normal mandarin drives me crazy to eat. Our children today are growing up believing that Watermelons and Mandarins have no seeds. Sure, it is much easier to eat, but what does it say to our children? What does that subconsciously teach us all?

I wonder how many of our churches, our programs, our ministries are like “seedless fruit”? Tasty and attractive, but without seeds that get replanted into the souls and hearts that come, so that they might be able to grow and yield their own fruit?  How often are our churches centred around the leader’s spiritual strength, that might come from delighting in the Lord and His word and bearing fruit that is delicious to eat, but by the next week those that came last week are craving for more to sustain them another week? 

Francis Chan tells a story of a Mega Church pastor in Seoul. He asked “How can I get my people to leave and live by faith? He explained how he had become really proficient at gathering people together but his intention was to get them to disperse to share the Gospel and live by faith. But now they had grown comfortable and didn't want to leave” (F. Chan, “Letters to the Church”, p 153)

As parents, we can be so meticulous about cutting up bite sizes of fruit and taking out the seeds or much worse feeding them substitutes to healthy fruit all together and not actually giving them the seeds of what they actually need to grow up and bear their own fruit.  Please, know that I am not just talking about feeding our kids healthy fruit with seeds here. (Although that is important as well). 

Whatever space we are in as leaders or parents, let’s be careful that we are bearing fruit that comes with a seed of truth. 

   “A farmer went out to sow his seed” Mathew 13:3

A seed of truth that can be replanted and grow independent of us being there. We are called to plant the seed, and God will grow it, but if we are only giving out fluffy, sweet fruit with no seeds, we have missed the point of being planted deeply in God and the blessing that comes with it.  This is not about yielding a fruit for ourselves, or unto ourselves, or drawing people towards us. It is so that the seed of truth may not only prosper in us but also spread to the ends of the earth.  

I want to see my children grow and become bigger, stronger trees than I can ever be. I long to see those I am called to lead, go and plant their own trees and reproduce over and over again. But it must start with me and the question, “Am I bearing seedless fruit?”