My Plumeria Tree

I am not a gardener. I do not have a green thumb. Truth be told, I’ve even killed a cactus. I’m not sure the fake poinsettias on my porch will survive my care. But there is one plant in my care that has thrived in the seven years I’ve owned it.

I bought my beloved plumeria tree six months after I married my husband at the annual Aloha Festival in San Francisco. And plumeria has long been my most favorite flower because it smells like my favorite place, Hawai'i. So that day, I bought a plumeria plant. It was small, maybe only fourteen inches tall, in a very small pot. I paid five dollars for it. Or maybe it was eight. In either case, it was a good deal. Who could have paradise in their own home for less? I also bought a plumeria for my parents who are by definition gardeners. My mom and dad can make anything grow. I envy their garden, their houseplants, their enthusiasm at pulling weeds and watering. Yet it is my plumeria that continues to blossom. Theirs, well, let’s just say it wasn’t meant to be.

One plumeria flourished, the other died. I don’t really know why my plumeria has flourished. I’ve already told you I don’t know the first thing about gardening. I like the idea of growing things. But I don’t do it very well. But I have a gorgeous plumeria tree that is now five feet tall and growing. Even my parents have remarked at my gorgeous tree and the off chance it would survive much less flourish in my care. But it has. And they’ve asked me many times what I do to it to make it grow so well. Besides watering and an unadulterated desire for it to grow, there is only one thing that I did that they didn’t.

Every summer I transplant my plumeria into a bigger pot. I don’t know where I got the idea that it needed more room in order to grow, but so far it has worked. And so when I started thinking about the idea that God transplants us in order to continue His good work in us, I thought of my sweet plumeria tree.

You see, I love that tree as much as any possession I have, maybe even more. If I had to leave everything behind and take only one thing, it would likely be my plumeria tree. To me, that tree is proof that I can grow something. Proof that there’s a future. Proof that God loves me.

I know that God loves me a whole lot more than I love some silly tree. I know that He wants me to grow and bloom the same way I want my plumeria to blossom. And if He sees the need to transplant me, whether it be a move halfway across the country or into a different ministry, then I know it’s because I need a new pot so I can continue growing. It’s kind of like the silly little epithet, “Bloom where you’re planted.”

Thanksgiving Indeed

I've long been a fan of Thanksgiving. Of course I'm a lover of all holidays, but Thanksgiving holds special memories for me. Growing up, we often spent turkey day in Hawai'i with loads of extended family. Baba (my grandmother for those who don't know) would bring a suitcase full of food including the turkey itself. On Thanksgiving morn, we'd go to the beach and in the afternoon, we'd go to Baba's condo and have Thanksgiving dinner. Later, after our mandatory naps, we'd spend the evening in the pool and hot tub. Once I got into high school, though, it became more difficult to escape to Hawai'i. Completely distraught, I convinced my mom and Baba to have a Thanksgiving Luau. For the next ten years, we had themed Thanksgivings: Hoe-down, Mickey Mouse Club, Victorian, Wine country, Mardi Gras etc. It was fun. Scott even proposed on Thanksgiving 2000. Since moving to the prairie, our Thanksgiving celebration is much smaller. Gone are the hoards of people (more than once we had 42 people) and the eight or nine desserts I used to make. Yet I feel more grateful than ever.

This year, like every year, we have much for which to be grateful. Scott starts a new job on Monday. Praise God. Both of my kids are healthy. Praise God. The weather is gorgeous. Praise God. I am content and happy in life. Praise God. When Scott and I married, I bought a plaque to hang on our door. It simply said, "Plenty." And that my dear friends sums it up. We have plenty for which to be grateful. Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgivings Past:

Trust & Understanding

In elementary school, we memorized Proverbs 3:5-6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths
straight.

It's a simple verse that's easy to recall. In fact it's so simple that I often take it for granted. Its meaning is even simplistic. It kind of makes me think of how Adam says, "I know, I know" when I tell him to do something. He's hearing but he's not really listening. And that's kind of how I've always looked at this verse. But this week-end one phrase jumped out at me and made sense in a new way:

Lean not on your own understanding

Understanding. That's an overused word in a mother's vocabulary. "Do you understand?" I'll ask Adam. Or I'll try to be understanding when a toy breaks. But there is so much more to the meaning of the word than that.

How many times have I said, "I don't understand, God" or "I don't understand why He's letting this happen to us"? A million easily. Not un derstanding is a huge frustration for me. But here in this verse we're very clearly commanded to not lean on understanding. To not rely on our understanding of a situation. Basically we're told to just trust and not try and figure it out. That's tough for me. I'm self-reliant and trust does not come easy. That along with my insatiable desire to always have a plan causes me to lean on my own understanding quite often.

I don't understand why Scott and I suffer certain trials and tribulations. It doesn't make sense to me. But it's not supposed to because I'm supposed to trust.

When I'm pursuing my own understanding of a situation instead of just trusting, I bounce around from theory to theory. If I were to drop a trail of crumbs behind me as I stumbled down the path to understanding I know it would be curvy, full of zig-zags with lots of bumps in the road. But look at the next verse:

In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight

Well duh. If' I'd just recognize that He's in control of it all and that He is mightier than anything I can do, I wouldn't have to stumble and bumble my way into understanding. My path of trust would be straight.

Then I started thinking about "one nation under God" and how our nation, whether we like it or not, is subject to God's rule. No matter how hard some try oust God from our money or our pledge, He is still in control. I'm taking great comfort in this this week as I'm pretty disappointed with the results of the election. I don't understand how we got here. I don't understand how Americans could believe our president-elect. I don't understand, I don't understand.

But then I'm not supposed to understand but to trust and know He's in control.

Don't Look Back

Recently, I was thinking back to decisions I've made. Good ones. Bad ones. All of them got me to where I am today. And suddenly I was reminded that looking back holds you up. I thought of the story of Lot's wife in Genesis 19. Two verses spoke directly to what I was thinking about:

v.17, 26 Don't look back and don't stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the
mountains or you will be swept away. But Lot's wife looked back and she became a
pillar of salt.

You can't move forward when you're looking back. Can you imagine driving forward down the street in a straight line while looking out the back window? It just wouldn't happen. You'd end up in the ditch for certain. Even if you were just looking in your side mirror instead of looking ahead you would end up in trouble. "Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear." You could get sucked into regret, despair, or even pride.

I've been thinking about how we decided to move to Bismarck instead of Dickinson. Thinking about the time I lost with Adam when I could have been playing with him instead of cleaning. I've reflected on screwed-up relationships with estranged relatives. And of course, last week's election has been on my mind as well as Bush's presidency. The question that kept coming to my mind: "how did we get here?"

There's a difference between learning from history and living for it. We have to learn from our good decisions and learn from the bad ones. We can't continue to pat ourselves on the back for doing a good job or beat ourselves up for screwing up. Because if you're living for the past, you're looking back and that means you're stuck.

But, more there's more to it than that. Lot's wife looked back onto Sodom & Gomorrah, longingly we presume, and she turned to salt. A pillar of salt. A pillar is immovable. Salt scatters. So looking back leaves us stuck but it also scatters us. Our goals, our future, our hope, everything ends up scattered. I dont know about you, but I hate when I feel scattered or out of focus. It renders me useless. This makes me think of two other verses:

Jeremiah 13:24
I will scatter you like chaff driven by the desert wind.

James 1:6
But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

A few months ago, my sister stopped by and as we stood in my driveway, a big wind came up and blew the paperwork on the seat of her car right out into the yard. They scattered. They were blown and tossed. What a mess and a total hassle to retrieve them all.She was exhausted after she collected all the papers. And it was stressful. I don't know about you but I don't need any additional stress or exhaustion in my life.

So looking back is useless. Yes it's good to learn from history. Good to reminisce. But anything more than that turns us into an immovable statue of dust. No thanks.

Halloween, Election and other Ramblings

Our first halloween as a complete family was a total dream come true. Adam dressed as Capt Jack Sparrow and Gracie was Sleeping Beauty. Yes, this Disney-crazed mommy had a pirate and a princess. It was perfect. Well, as perfect as a ridiculous holiday like halloween can be. Neither Scott nor I are big on the holiday mostly because of its pagan beginnings but also because it's turned into a commericalized nightmare of death. Okay that's a little harsh but you get the point. Growing up, halloween wasn't a big deal at my house. My sister and I dressed up for our school's Harvest Day Parade but our costumes had to be historical, literary, animal or Biblical. I remember dressing as Delilah one year complete with giant scissors made from foil and cardboard. Another year my friends and I were Job's daughters. The entire 3rd grade class always went as an Indian tribe while the entire 4th grade class was cowboys/girls. I was Queen Elizabeth in 5th grade and in 6th grade my friends and I dressed as a wedding party based on the book "My Sister's Wedding." I only remember dressing up for five halloweens since then: a pirate, little red riding hood, Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother and when I was teaching I dressed as a Hawaiian tourist. Scott, on the other hand, says he was halloween crazed. Evidently he and his friends would do huge haunted houses and even had a funeral procession one time. So weird.

Anyway, that was last week. This week there was the election. Bah humbug. All I can say is now it's my turn to complain about the president over the next four years. No seriously, God is in control and there is nothing that Obama can do to me or this country that can snatch His grace and goodness from me. I'd really like to vent about his win, but I'll just take a deep breath and pray instead.

Huh. When I sat down to write, I had a lot to say. Then I got up to get the power cord for my failing laptop battery and forgot what it was I wanted to tell you. So I'll just call it a night.

A Rose is Still a Rose Cont'd

Picking up where I left off with my study of 2 Cor 4:10-18...

v.10-12 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that
the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive
are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may
be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life
is at work in you.

To me this says, "look you can't have life without death." Think about folks who have nearly died, they appreciate life more. Like in the wake of 9/11 when Americans valued more than just material goods. Or it's like spring's awakening after the death of winter. We can't appreciate the new life spring brings unless we've seen the death of winter. For me, being a native Californian, I didn't know what spring was. Very few trees/plants go dormant during a California winter. The grass doesn't turn brown. So until I moved here, I had no appreciation for spring because I'd never seen the death of winter.

v. 15- 16 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

I often ask myself and God, "Why?" Why do I struggle? Why is everything so hard right now?Why am I walking along this rocky road? What is the point. And then something or someone reminds me it's so that I can see, feel, hear and taste His grace. So my faith can grow. So God can receive glory. Things that come easy to us aren't appreciated the same way we appreciate things for which we've worked or even struggled. It's like the statement, "We go through what we go through so we can help others get through what we went through." And then the instruction, "Don't give up!" Don't get discouraged. Don't be afraid. Makes me think of the children's book, "The Little Engine that Could." "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." And that gets us to the outward appearance versus the inward state. Some days I know my outward appearance accurately depicts what I'm feeling inside be it happiness or despair. Other days, I do my best to make my outward appearance look like all is well while in the inside I'm struggling. Kind of like that old song, "Tears of a Clown." But here it says we are wasting away outwardly and inwardly being renewed. That's a direct reflection of how this world will pass away but our spirits will live on. How everything we buy will meet its demise but time spent with loved ones, time spent with God will last forever.

v.17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory
that far outweighs them all.

I dont' know about you but my troubles don't often feel light nor momentary. Hence the name troubles. They never seem manageable while we're trudging through them. Looking back on the suffering though, and we see how brief it really was. In the grand scheme of things even a year of trouble is short. The "trouble" is necessary for the "glory." No guts, no glory. No pain, no gain. No pregnancy/adoption process, no baby. But the thing is the glory always outweighs the trouble. So, I'm sitting here thinking how "heavy" my troubles are right now. The glory revealed at the end of all this is going to be HUGE!

v.18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For
what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

If you've ever owned your own business, lost weight, or even just purchased something on layaway, you're familiar with goals. You know what it is to focus on something you can't see. Imagine the unimaginable. That's all this is saying. But it specifically calls us to focus not on material goals, manmade ideals or worldly gain. It calls us to focus on future glory, on eternal life, on heaven if you will. These days, with all the talk about Obama being the antichrist and this being the end times, it is so easy to get wrapped up in the world. Sometimes I catch myself freaking out that I haven't done all I wanted to do, or I'll find myself just plain scared. That's when I have to remind myself to focus on the unseen glory of heaven. Like the song says, "I can only imagine..."

So when I started this post 11 days ago, I titled it "A rose is still a rose." For those of you who know me personally, you catch the play on words. But when I first read this passage, this is the phrase that popped into my head. You see no matter what you do to a rose, no matter how harsh the winter, how dry the summer, or how glorious the spring, a rose is still a rose.

A rose is still a rose

So yesterday my devotional, which was entitled "A Life of Becoming", was based on 2 Cor 4: 7-18. It made me reflect upon the current financial crisis in this country, and my own financial challenges, as well as the election at hand, in a new way. Here's what I mean.

vs. 8-9 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

You could easily deduce that many Americans are "hard pressed on every side" with credit card debt, over-their-head mortgages, high gas prices (though they're down to $2.99 here!) and the ever increasing price of food and essentials. But despite the doomsday-spouting media, most are not "crushed" by these hard times. I know some days it feels pretty squeaky tight around here but we're not crushed.

Many of us republicans are perplexed by not only our candidate but Obama too. We are perplexed that McCain hasn't called him out on so many things and perplexed that people actually believe the hogwash Obama spews. Yet we are not yet despaired. Personally, Scott and I have been perplexed a lot lately. We are continuously perplexed at the ebb and flow of our business. Some days the perplexity borders on discouragement but these days we are not despaired.

Persecuted? Oh yes, I know many Americans are feeling persecuted by bill collectors, and the like. But if only they'd realize they are not abandoned by the Almighty that would bring them comfort. We don't have bill collectors calling us, but again, we often feel persecuted in that we don't have the money to do all the things we want to do. Or persecuted in that we don't have all the business we want, or the customers are difficult and keep changing their minds. Sometimes I feel persecuted by my children who are always "taking" but so rarely "giving." Yet in all of this, we are never abandoned. He has never left us and never will leave us.

A few months ago, Scott and I felt struck down. We felt knocked on our butts by something a "friend" did and said. It has taken months for us to recover from this. And it did nearly destroy our business, our confidence, our forward motion. But we remained faithful. We continued to seek His guidance and He spared us from destruction.

There's so much more to this passage...but my laptop battery is about to die. I will pick up tomorrow and you will see why I say "a rose is still a rose."