carriejoyful

For Pat

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Life pushes through.

It’s happening in our backyard right now, between the old, worn wooden slats of the fence that separates our yard from that of our dear neighbor Pat. The fresh green leaves and new blooms of Spring are defying the odds against them. They’ve persevered and found their way to burst into beauty despite the surrounding decay.

This image strikes me, especially now as Pat has just returned home on hospice care after more than her share of hospital visits. In her nineties now, Pat’s physical life is nearing its end. Her body is tired and in need of rest. It feels odd to think of Pat this way. When we moved back to the neighborhood almost two years ago she was just as feisty as when we first moved to Andreo Avenue after getting married in September 2000.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time on our block would agree that Pat has served as the anchor of the neighborhood for over sixty years. She and her husband Roger moved into the house next door the decade after it was built in 1942. They raised their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren here in a charming home that is still trimmed in Pat’s signature sunshine yellow inside and out. They hosted dozens of Christmas dinners and Easter egg hunts for the family, which were marked with laughter and the distinct cracking sound of the break at the beginning of each game on their pool table. And year after year they generously kept our chairs reserved in their front yard for fireworks viewing on the 4^th of July. Family matters most to the Hornbacks, everything else takes a back seat. Family, hard work, respect, and the simple life. Pat and Roger have always been a breath of fresh air to me in this world that seems continually more impressed with its own sophistication.

I’ve often joked that Pat is the eyes of Andreo Ave. Though she was well into her seventies and did not spend much time outdoors when we first moved to the neighborhood, nothing ever got past her. I remember getting a call from her once when we were young newlyweds. There was no small talk or casual conversation, she got straight to the point. “Y’know honey, for the life of me I can’t figure out Jon’s schedule. Yours I know, you leave at the same time every morning and come back the same time every afternoon. But Jon, he’s all over the place. I don’t understand it.” Some might have presumed her to be a busybody, but I knew better. Pat loved her street and her neighbors and liked to make sure everything was as it should be. Her presence here gives me the sense of small town living that my heart yearns for.

The days of Pat’s sharp vision and regular phone calls are gone now. Her house is quiet, the only signs of movement happening during shift change for the caregivers. During my last few visits with her sitting on her still-perfectly-tidy yellow flowered couch Pat teared up as she shared with Isaiah and I the frustrations of growing old. “Oh honey, it’s so hard not to be able to do all of the things I used to do for myself. Taking out the trash, cooking my meals, even going out to see the flowers in my yard.” She paused. “You’ll see someday…it will happen to you too.” For Pat “all of the things” meant pretty much everything, as God doesn’t make ‘em more independent than she is. Than she was.

Yet and still, life pushes through. These flowers that have forced their way into our backyard are Pat’s legacy in more ways than one. Not only do they grow from her yard but they are cared for by my son who secured his first job when Pat hired him to water her lawn and plants every Monday and Thursday. Though it sometimes takes a little nudging from Mom, he puts on his shoes, grabs his house keys, and yells, “I’m going to water” as he runs out the door. Like most thirteen year olds Isaiah is not a fan of work, but much like Pat he has a heart for his neighbors. While he does get paid for his work, he also does it because he loves her, and as she has told me many a time over the years, she loves him too.

Love is the thing that allows life to push through. God’s love for us is revealed in so many things, particularly the relationships that He creates to teach us, refine us, grow us into who we are meant to be. Pat will live on because of the love that we have for her. She resides not only in memories but in who we are and will become.

Life is what it is – filled with hope and opportunity yet fragile and uncertain. For some like Pat it lasts decades, for others like my daughter, less than minutes. But life pushes through connecting us each one to another with a beauty and grace that we may never understand.

George

“You are wonderful, I just want you to know that.” The biggest, most brilliant smile took over his face as he responded, “Thank you, miss. I appreciate that.” The exchange itself seemed simple enough. No one would ever detect all of the nervous anxiety and embarrassment I had to overcome to stop our server George on his way back to the kitchen just to say those ten words to him. But I couldn’t not say them because they were true, he was wonderful. And he made a significant impact on my perspective.

Throughout our breakfast, I was taken with the way that George interacted with his world and the people in it. He was genuinely welcoming and very polite to every person that he encountered, co-workers and customers alike. It also stood out to me that he was older than most of the servers or staff we usually meet at a Disneyland resort restaurant. I found myself wondering how he ended up in that line of work and at that specific location. It wasn’t until I found the courage to speak to George that I realized how presumptuous it was of me to assume that he had “ended up” there or anywhere.

“Your demeanor and attitude is so positive. And you seem to truly love what you do.” He replied, “I do, I love what I do.” I asked how long he had been working there and he said, “I’ve been at this restaurant for eleven years and I also work at Napolini. I’ve been there even longer, about thirteen years. This place has been good to me. It’s given me the opportunity to make a life for myself, to raise my family.”

Perhaps because I so often find myself starved for gratitude and humility from day to day, my eyes immediately welled up with tears. I felt the contentment in this man’s heart and was blessed by his willingness to share even a little bit of it with me. I paused to examine my own heart and the assumptions I had made about George prior to our three-minute conversation. And I recognized that I often allow opportunities like this to escape me because I’m wrapped up in my own preoccupations. This particular day was no exception.

I’d be lying if I said that my outlook was positive on the morning that I met George. But my encounter with him convicted my heart and replaced my jaded perspective with gratefulness. I knew that I was exactly where God wanted me to be that day. All of the noise and traffic around me didn’t matter because God had designed a quiet moment to recapture my gaze and bring my focus back to Him. Only the Creator of love, life, humanity, and relationships could drown out the distractions of a bitter world to make space for such an unexpected, meaningful connection. I could see that my reaching out blessed George, and without question, his response affected me. But I would be foolish to think that I created any of it.

People often have a negative view of submission and obedience but God’s truth reveals that when we submit our own will and obey Him, He creates beauty from ashes. His intentions and desires for our lives are far greater than what we could dream for ourselves. This doesn’t mean that when we face hardships God is absent. Instead, those experiences of suffering and the outcomes point to His eternal presence and willingness to refine us. George may not know it but he served as a vessel of the Lord that morning and his story was beautifully woven into my own. His gratitude was contagious, and I’m so glad God positioned me to catch it.

The Mother Heart

Mother Heart

The complexity of a mother’s heart can never be captured by the expression she wears on her face. As a child you don’t realize how cavernous and powerful her love is for you. You don’t understand that your pain hurts her twice as deeply, or that your joy breathes new life into her lungs. Her bright smile or thoughtful gaze may seem to simply say that she is happy, but underneath and throughout her being her love for you is breaking, mending, and stretching her heart in a thousand different directions.

She gives all that she has and goes to bed each night praying for an even greater capacity. She clings to your now while grieving the loss of your yesterday and anticipating your tomorrow with hope.

I couldn’t see it until I became a mother myself but I recognize it now in each of these faces. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and me. We all wrestle with this love that overtakes us and teaches us over and again about ourselves.

To all the women who have loved me, my mother, and her mother before her – to all who mother the children that they hold and those that they’ve had to let go – thank you. You are beautiful, courageous, and stronger than you give yourself credit for.

Today and every day is yours.

Happy Mother’s Day.

His Gift, My Hope

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“Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.” ~ Micah 4:4

One of the most common questions asked at this time of year is often answered in a way that might seem benign, even noble. “What do you want for Christmas?” “I just want to be happy.” Who can argue with that? It’s certainly more agreeable than being presented with a laundry list of material desires. But more and more I find myself wrestling with the way the world prioritizes the pursuit of happiness as an ultimate life goal. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy things like hearing my son’s belly laugh, biting into a fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookie, or feeling the ocean breeze on my skin. Those things make me happy, but they are not the source of my Hope.

Recently I have recognized a pattern in my thinking that has shifted my focus away from the truth of what Hope in God really means. I tend to get caught up in checking the boxes on my list of things to do, with the goal in mind of seeing results, feeling accomplished, arriving at peace and rest. In doing so I am putting my hope in all the places that it doesn’t belong – my job, my home, even the list itself. How diminishing it is for me to live as though the gift of Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection was to create space for my lists and my own earthly priorities.

The blessed Hope of Christmas is so much bigger. The gift of Jesus is mercy, grace, access, forgiveness, and the promise of living in God’s presence for eternity. This is where Hope originates. In his description of the last days the prophet Micah tells of a peaceful place where “every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make him afraid…” It is foolish for me to seek that place on this side of heaven. While the deliverance we receive through the miracle of Jesus’s birth does benefit our lives and experiences, that benefit is only part of the gift. The bigger part is bright Hope for tomorrow, which is not dependent upon what I see or how I feel today. So while the world settles for “happy,” I’ll choose Hope in the One who holds the future.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

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Just saying the word Christmas sparks joy in the hearts and light in the eyes of many. Thoughts of Christmas often bring us back to a time of childlike wonder and inspire us to look forward to the light, love, and warmth of this season year after year. It seems fitting then that so many of the favorite songs we sing at Christmas time are full of joy and triumph. We are, after all, celebrating the birth and life of our Savior.

But our feelings and experiences surrounding Christmas are not always merry. Grief, broken relationships, financial burdens, and any number of private personal struggles don’t simply disappear because the calendar turns over to December. That’s why I love this song so much – it speaks directly to the heart of a people who desperately need the Son of God.

The song addresses those in captivity, in mourning, in exile, in need of rescue and comfort. And after each verse recognizes these people in need, it returns to this sweet refrain of promise – “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel.” Jesus never invalidates our feelings, he knows them intimately. He loves us right where we are, in whatever state our hearts are found. We don’t have to put on a brave face or pretend – He comes to us just as we are. That is the blessed hope of Christmas. We are who we are, we’ve done what we’ve done, and yet He came for us.

A Clear Mystery

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“This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus.” ~ Ephesians 3:6

I often marvel at the simplicity and clarity with which God speaks to His people – even more so at the way we overthink and complicate what He says. The end result is usually steering ourselves off course and in the opposite direction of His holy intention.

Inevitably the root cause of a scenario like this is always the same – we take our eyes off of God. Pastor Dsane said it in the first week of our People of God sermon series – “It’s not about you.” And he’s right, the minute I look away from the source of the gospel and the promise of Christ, my heart and its seemingly altruistic motivations are revealed to be more about what I can do for God than what He’s already done for me. This message has stirred me. It drives me to my knees in repentance and makes me ask myself repeatedly if I believe what I say I believe. Do I know that God is working when it seems that everything is falling apart? Do I trust that He has a greater plan than the one I’ve poured myself into? Can I rejoice in the struggle of transition and being stretched outside of my comfort zone in an effort to point people to Jesus? These are hard questions mainly because despite our best intentions, what the answers should be and what they are often do not align.

I think the mystery that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 3 has little to do with God’s complexity and everything to do with His offering of grace and perfect love to a very imperfect people. While we complicate and separate, Jesus bridges the gap to bring us together with the magnificent opportunity to be called and become His people. We need only to keep our eyes on Him and follow His lead to step into our identity as “The People of God.”

Wait for the Whisper

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“After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” ~ 1 Kings 19:11-12

If you were to ask the people who really know me to describe me using three distinct words, “gentle” would not be one of them. In school I was the loud kid, always making people laugh. The teacher comments on almost every report card accurately reflected my personality – “Excellent student – talks too much.” Every day when I got home from school I started in right away on my homework so that I would have time to change into my play clothes and roll around in the grass with my dog. There were no princess dresses or tea parties, I was pretty rough and tumble.

Not much has changed in thirty-something years. Sarcastic, talking when I should be listening, powering through to get things done instead of sitting in consideration, that’s all me. And none of it screams “gentle,” primarily because by my own actions and in my own strength that’s exactly what I do. I try to scream gentleness. I go about it the completely wrong way. Like Elijah standing on the mountain looking for the presence of God, I seem to be more comfortable in the chaos. I tend to keep my focus on the wind and the earthquake and the fire, powering through and calling out loudly to the Lord that I need Him.

But the Fruit of the Spirit – God’s gift of gentleness – comes in the gentle whisper…so gentle that I often miss it. He wants me to know that I don’t have to scream for Him to hear me. What is so amazing about God is that He waits for us to be still. He invites us to keep our eyes looking heavenward, to quiet our hearts and to wait for the whisper. While we run around getting caught up in the noise of this world, He waits to lead us to gentleness so that we can be nourished by it and learn how to bless others with the fullness of this gift.

Goodness in Between

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“Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” ~ Psalm 116:7

Once when I was listening to the radio I heard the voice of an angry man asking a question that I’ve heard asked countless times before. There have been books written about it. We’ve all asked this question ourselves at one time or another. “Why do bad things happen?” On this particular day it was clear that no answer would suffice. The man speaking was unwilling to hear any answer at all. His anger stood in the way of truly allowing for the opportunity to explore the question.

As he busied himself with argument and continuous questioning I realized that he wasn’t really seeking an answer. He just wanted someone to listen to his tired heart. He didn’t want to be subjected to the pain of whatever had caused him to ask this question in the first place. He wanted to feel good again.

It’s this desire to feel good that fools most of us into thinking we know what goodness is. We long for what makes us feel good, the things that please our senses. So we move forward step by step seeking to get from one good feeling to the next, hoping to swiftly and painlessly move past the bad things that happen in between. I know I’m guilty. I forget that goodness exists even in the bad things – in the things that don’t feel good. I fail to account for the good that God is doing as He refines, heals, grows, nurtures, and loves us through the darkness.

In times like we are living now, when we are surrounded by tragedy and suffering, it’s easy to ask “Where is God?” It’s easy to point the accusatory finger at Him. The harder questions come when life is going well and we are feeling good – where am I? Am I honoring Him with my words, my actions, and my life? Am I faithful to Him? Or am I too busy looking for the next thing to make me feel good? Thankfully God is not like us. He doesn’t look for us only when we are on our best behavior and He doesn’t tear us down when we stumble. He doesn’t just do good works or create good feelings, He IS goodness.

Of Kindness

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Kindness stands out. Often it’s noticeable because I’ve become accustomed to experiencing its adversaries. Anger, hatred, bitterness, greed, contempt, jealousy, and selfishness are on full display all around me. Some days I don’t have to look any further than my own mirror to find them. When I do look beyond myself I see and hear everyone racing to be the first, the best, and the most successful. Slammed doors, angry words, and stolen parking spaces – they aren’t hard to find. Amidst this much noise and darkness, a simple kind act from one human being to another shines brightly and sings sweetly.

I recently witnessed just such an act while out for dinner. A mother and her two daughters were finishing up their meal and took notice of a man sitting alone at the back of the room. I had seen him too. He wasn’t eating, just watching the ballgame on TV. The mother motioned to the man and asked if he would like to have some bread and chicken. “We’re not going to eat it, would you like some?” He looked surprised and then his face softened to a smile. He was hesitant but the woman encouraged him to come and eat. He walked over and joined them, sat down and they all talked for about half an hour. At the end of their time together I couldn’t tell that they had been strangers just minutes before. I was captivated by how simple but powerful this exchange was, and I felt thankful that I was there to witness it.

I thought about why kindness is considered a gift and not just an act. I never spoke a word to these people and had nothing to do with their interaction, but my spirit was lifted and my heart encouraged. I received the gift of a kindness that had nothing to do with me. But the truth is every kindness that I experience has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. He is the origin of kindness. We are the vessels by which kindness is given and received, if we’re willing. Knowing this truth convicts my sinful heart and nurtures my longing to be more like the heart of God.

Abuelita

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“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart.” ~ Deuteronomy 8:2

The greatest inspiration in my life was an eighty-nine pound woman who never learned to drive. Every day she made her coffee at 2:55pm, always Folgers instant crystals, always served with her favorite “galletas,” the crackers she snacked on while watching “Guiding Light” on CBS. When I walked in the door she would immediately hand me my own cup of coffee and catch me up on the first ten minutes of the show that I had missed during my walk home from school.

My grandma’s sparse closet housed a handful of dresses that were gifts from my mom and an assortment of hand-me-down items collected from friends and neighbors. She had one gold necklace that read “#1 Mom,” which she wore only to church on Sundays. Grandma slept without a pillow and kept only one thin comforter on her bed in any given season. By earthly standards she had very little but her own standards were from the heavens so she wanted for nothing.

Early on I learned about the wilderness that my grandmother had traveled through. About my alcoholic grandfather, the abuse. The pain. I watched her quietly and faithfully care for him through the years that he was ill and dying. Yet when I think of her all I can see are her slippers so carefully set at her bedside as she knelt to pray several times a day. I hear her prayers uttered in Spanish and the songs of praise she sang as she washed the dishes. I feel the legacy of faith that goes before me and holds me up, far greater than any inheritance ever could.

Though she’s been gone for almost twenty years, my grandmother’s heart after the Lord continues to urge me to humility and truth. I want my son to be able to say of me that what came out of my life is a true reflection of what was in my heart.