On the hard and scary days, I need to persistently ask myself that question. I’ve whispered that one question in the most impossible places: hospice rooms, hospital lobbies, funeral parlors. I’ve had to ask myself that question on the days when I’ve been worried sick, scared out of my gourd, or just plain stubborn.  

The answer is always the same: Life is a journey, headed toward a destination. Life is not an end unto itself, or there’d be no point in being here at all. 

See now: Did you feel that breath you just drew into your lungs? Take another one. And this time, feel it deep, would you?

That was God’s blessed assurance that He’s got plans for you, friend.

I remember it now, that day-long road trip along the rugged coastline of Maui years ago. I journeyed along a winding, wiggling, worm of a road with my husband and his family. The trip along the Road to Hana is considered a must-see on a Maui traveler’s itinerary. So we took that drive. We wound our way past jaw-dropping beauty: verdant rainforests, plunging pools, dramatic seascapes and waterfalls. But the journey was also fraught with pesky bugs, rough roads, hairpin turns, and carsickness.

All the tourist brochures will tell you that the journey is called the Road to Hana. The Road, it seems, is the attraction. No one calls the trip “Hana.” It’s the Road to Hana. The road has a purpose greater than moving travelers from one place to another;  the road itself is filled with its own magic.

I don’t know what your journey is. I don’t know what kind of hairpin curves you’re navigating in this life. I don’t know what your big thing is … the one that looks too big, or downright impossible. But I do know that if we keep our eyes open, we will eventually see true beauty. We might have to wait until we see it around the next bend, or when we glance back in the rear-view mirror.

But let’s both trust that it is something worth living for.

“Yahweh, holy is Your name.
Yahweh, holy is Your name.”

The music stopped cold in that one steel-crushing moment when an oncoming car slammed into my van.

I remember it all; it was the morning I thought I might die. It was the morning of a single red streak, slashing across the center line. I can hear it now: the crumpling steel, the shattering glass. I remember the stinging airbag. The spin. The ditch. The howling wind through a broken window.

And pain. I remember the pain. When I felt the pain, I knew for sure what I hadn’t yet been made certain of: I was alive.

I’d never felt so alive in all my life, and I haven’t forgotten what that feels like, three years later. I hope that memory never dulls.

I remember the ambulance ride, and how they cut off my favorite blue jeans to find the gaping wound on my left leg.

I remember someone using the word, “Lucky,” to describe the minor nature of my injuries. A woman who came to pray with me used a different word: “Blessed.”

I remember, too, how the phone rang into the X-ray room. My husband had dialed and found me there, in that small community hospital. We both cried, and it was just four days before his father would die in hospice. We knew his dad’s time was close, and he was torn between the injured wife, and the dying father. We both knew he should stay there. A friend who had come upon the accident scene — by God-incidence — would drive me home by mid-afternoon.

In the ER, the doctor stitched things back together on my leg, in the shape of a Y, the first initial for Yahweh. Just then, I remembered the song. I felt marked. For good. I didn’t want the scar to fade.

A whole person can get put back together like that — in the shape of a Y.

“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
– Colossians 1:17

***

Yahweh is perpetually in the business of stitching things together, putting aright the broken pieces. There is nothing in this broken world that He cannot redeem. It’s all free game. We are all free game, and believe me, He’s coming after us all. He pursues us ALL the days of our lives. Every last one of them. He offers a hand out, if we’ll just put a hand up. 

I did. I’ve put hands up. I still do. And if I hold them both straight up, they form a perfect Y.

I’ve been healed in a hundred different ways. I have the scars to prove true the wounds.

The wounded always wear scars.

Three years later, the scar on my left leg has faded. I can still trace it with my finger. I’m marked with a Y, and I see these Ys everywhere now. 

To me, the Ys point to Yahweh — and His habit of saturating the world with His glory.  It might seem a tad childish, to find Ys in places like airplane contrails and tree branches. I suppose someone might call this wishful thinking or coincidence or pure nonsense, that a 40-year-old woman goes looking for Ys. Even more ridiculous, but just as true, is this: sometimes the Ys coming looking for you.

Kayla knows. She’s the six-year-old girl who brought me a Y stick at the back of the church.

And Carol knows. She finds Ys in things like windmills and sidewalk cracks.

Monica knows. She sent me a drawing. Tiffany finds Ys in the trees.

And then, this note came last night, in my Facebook page inbox:

“… while picking up sticks, I found the most beautiful “Y” stick, perfectly broken . . . Then yesterday while digging in my garden, up came roots twisted together as if they were braided, into a beautiful Y, of course. And today when I went seeking medical information which I had prayed long about, there it was, the doctor actually said the new repair would be connected as a Y.”

Yahweh writes His name over everything, and He’s stitching it all together, even when not a stitch of it makes sense. 

The world wants to ask why. We really could answer every problem with this: Y.

“When the world says no way, we say Yahweh.”
~ Bob Lenz

***
Photos: A collage of Ys from friends like Carol, Teresa, Jessica and others. Drawing arrived by email, in a handmade journal from Monica…

Have you seen Ys in your world? I’d love to see them! Let me know on Facebook!

Have you come to share you own story of a God-Incidence or “God-Bump” moment? We’ve been waiting for you. Add the button, found here, to your post then come back and link below.

It’s no small wonder
that the world is filled
with small wonders.

But it takes a child with a stubborn streak of attentiveness to discover them.

Often, the smallest, biggest wonders are right where you are, on the way to where you’re headed, begging to be found under your feet. She found it first, in that glorious patch of clover that I had fully missed.

A child sees. She stops for miracles, gathering them up by the fist-full.

She discovered a clover patch at the edge of the soccer field. I had passed it, but she had stopped. I turned around to tell her to hurry, so we could sit in the lawn chairs that her Daddy had set up for us. But she was persistent after the miracles. She plucked them one by one.

Her slowing down was God’s way of reminding me: The here-below is a canvas of God above, who went to the trouble to create infinitely beautiful treasures to brighten up the sullen parts of this world.

This one child, made in God’s image, resembles her Maker, bending low over a handsome patch of clover. She holds grace in her hands.

I’m stopped by this. Watching her, I ask myself: When did I outgrow this kind of wonder? I used to stop for the clover, as a child. When does a grown-up stop stopping for wonder?

Here now, only with the help of a child, can I see. So I take three photos with my iPhone, and watch her, jealous for her eyes.

A child’s unyielding search for wonder, as she wanders, makes me wonder. Why don’t I?

How many small miracles have I missed? How often have I chased after the big thing — the promotion at work, the plush assignment, some sort of status or significance — while missing the wonder of the moment I’m wondrously in?

I’ve been a chronic miracle-misser. Children, I think, are born with that stubborn streak of wonder. Maybe we outgrow it, trade it in for stubborn streaks of personal ambition.

I think this is part of the reason why God gave me children — so I could see again. God is in the business of curing the blind. I know it firsthand: I am slowly regaining my vision, and now I have only begun to see visible signs of an invisible God everywhere. Everywhere, I tell you. He has soaked His world with wonder.

If we’ve outgrown our streak of wonder, then what would it take to make it fit again? I think about my closet, filled with things too small. If something is too small, we can’t generally make it bigger … we can only get smaller ourselves, so it fits again.

Yes, I need to get small. I need to decrease, so I can fit into my child-wonder again.

This blog — this post — is me, growing smaller.

I asked Anna, if she had any first-grader advice for big people who want to see like a kid. So here they are, Anna Lee’s Three Tips for Paying Attention:

BE LIKE AN OWL: “In my teacher’s classroom,” Anna tells us. “There’s a picture of an owl and some words that say, ‘This owl sits on a log. The less he talks, the more he learns. The more he learns, the less he talks. Why aren’t we all like that wise old owl?’”

SIT STILL: Anna says this is one of the rules posted on the wall of the classroom. If you’re moving around too much, she says, you can’t give your full attention to what’s right in front of you.

BE QUIET: “We’re supposed to be quiet when the teacher talks,” Anna says. This is true in life, too. When the Teacher is speaking, I want to be found at His feet, listening. Maybe with a fist-full of clover.

Photo by Lydia Lee, used with permission.

The world is saturated with things that bring God glory. Here are just a few of those things, discovered this week around the web:

A BEAUTIFUL STORY: Grab your tissues before you watch this one. An incredible story of love and commitment. The story of Ian & Larissa…

A PROJECT: A perfect gift for the graduate, or for Father’s Day. I think even I could make these. (Lydia and I might try it for a 4-H project in July.)

BLING WITH A PURPOSE: I have a heart for Haiti, and for the beautiful Haitian women who make ViBella Jewelry. Look what I found in their online catalog this week. A Jennifer necklace! Maybe you’ll find one that’s just right for you? (This company provides jobs for at-risk women in Haiti. Every necklace sold puts food on a table.)

WORSHIP: Oh, this song. It’s been awakening something in me. I’ve been listening to this one with the volume maxed out!

THE SOUND OF LOVE: Occasionally, I post over at FaithRadioNet.com. One of this months’ stories: ”When the ringing in your ears sounds like love, you never want it to end.” Join me there?

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR WOMEN: I found myself nodding as I read read this one from Rachel Held Evans. “The headlines say things about “10 Ways to Snag a Man” and “4 Recipes Your Family Will Love” and “29 Ways To Lose Weight And Still Eat a Donut Every Day,” but what we really read is: … Are you enough?”

WORTH REPEATING: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” (From DesiringGod.org)

Have a blessed weekend.

Do you have some favorite things? Share in the comment box.

Linking with Saturday Linky Love  …

I’m waiting outside, with my chin resting on my fist, while staring out the open window of my car. The engine’s turned off, and a cool spring breeze waltzes with my hair. I daydream.

“Mom?”

“Mom.”

I turn to my oldest daughter, sitting beside me. “What are you thinking about?”

“Oh … I’m waiting. Not sure what to blog about tomorrow, and sometimes I don’t know until it just … comes. Ya know?”

She nods a knowing nod. She likes when we talk writing. She tells me she  remembers that feeling when the teacher asked her to write a color poem.

We both know it’s true — We have to pay attention not only to write life, but to really live it. The best stories are right under our noses, just outside the car window, under the kitchen table, or tucked in beside you.

It’s true — God’s grandeur has tended to favor ordinary places like barns and bushes.

And writing makes us pay attention.

“I have an idea,” Lydia tells me, pointing a single finger into the air. “You should write about how you just can’t belieeeeeve how time flies, and you’re kids are growing up sooooo fast.”

She rolls her eyes, and giggles.

I ask her, “Where would you get an idea like that?”

“Oh, moms say that all the time.”

“That’s because it’s true. You’re growing up fast. I feel like I just put you on the school bus for the first time.”

“Yeah, well, that was, like, really long ago. There’s 365 days in a year, Mom. And they last for-e-verrrrr.”

Except they don’t.

They don’t last forever.

And someday she’ll know. Maybe it will happen when she’s sitting in a parking lot, listening to her own child expound on life, and wondering when exactly Tinkerbell got traded in for Taylor Swift. On Facebook, I read a friend‘s wife’s status, Her son asked the question “Who’s Elvis?” Another friend reported that one of her younger co-workers asked who Donna Summer was. Time goes by like that. We’re here for a vapor of time, and even the icons are soon forgotten.

We drive home, and later, I tuck Lydia into bed — as much as a 10-year-old girl will let her mother “tuck” her in. Her voice wobbles with emotion.

“Mom,” she says. “I’m happy that summer’s coming and everything, but I already feel kind of sad. Because summers always go by so fast.”

I hug her tight, without a word. I just grab hold of her. And hold her. I grab hold of this one day that goes so slow, in this one life that goes so fast, because we know when we look back, that we’ll regret it if we let these moments — soaked with the grandeur of God — slip through our fingers.

***
Pink is:
first beanie on a newborn’s head
velvety edge of baby-girl blankie
single clenched fist around a mama’s forefinger
midnight cry
chubby hand waving bye
front step together, watching morning sky
half-eaten dinner, beets untouched
cotton candy that Daddy gave you anyway
frosting, licked off birthday candles
tucked-in girls, with fluttering lashes
summer breeze at dusk, and sweat on the Mason jar
Pink is
love-you-more-than-all-the-stars-in-the-sky-times-infinity!
and remembering that days are long but life is short,
and this is the day the Lord has made.

{This day. Right here.}

***

Make your own “color poem” here.  Then come back and drop it in the comment box, or over on your blog.

Photo: Last day of school. The morning walk down the lane.

This is what I tell her when she’s crying in my arms. Her whole body shudders as we curve together into a crescent, under her Tinkerbell blanket. The glow of lamplight slants across her body.

“I don’t understand, Mommy. Why would you want to invite the monster here?” The fear quivers in her voice. She’s afraid of a monster in the closet. Or under the bed.

She is a product of her genes. I am a woman who has been habitually afraid of what she cannot see.

I have trembled at the feet of unnamed fears, manufactured by the mind. And that’s the thing: Make-believe monsters can sometimes inflict the same fear as real ones.

We know that freedom lies on the other side of cracked-open closet doors, or a simple peek under the bed. If we dared look, we would find nothing but dust bunnies and stray socks. But the single first step through the cracked door is always the scariest. And the only way through is bold, crazy Love.

I pull Anna in closer. “Let me tell you a story.”

She turns to face me, and I begin, making things up as I go along:

“Once upon a time, there was a scary green monster who lived in a closet. He had sharp teeth and claws and wrinkly green skin. One night, a brave little girl named Anna called the monster out of the closet. ‘Hello, little monster. I have a present for you.’”

“Huddled inside the dark closet, the monster opened his eyes wide. A present? For him? No one had ever given him a present before. The monster jabbed one bony finger through the crack of the closet door, and Anna hung a polka-dotted dress on that crooked finger, just like a coat rack.”

“‘Here. Try this on.’ That’s what Anna told the monster. She pressed her ear to the closet door, where she could hear all sorts of noises. The monster grunted and tugged. He rattled the hangers. And then the monster spoke real words, in a growly voice. And he even used the word ‘please’: ‘Little girl, could you please help me with this  zipper?’”

Curved against me in the bed, Anna giggles, and I continue the story:

“The brave girl reached in to the closet to find the stuck zipper. She tugged and tugged, zipping the dress all the way up the monster’s wart-covered back. Then, through the crack in the closet door, Anna handed the monster a shiny crown and a set of Mickey Mouse ears. With a timid ‘thank you,’ the monster in the dark closet placed the gifts on his head. Then slowly, the closet door creeeeeaked open. The little girl watched, with her hands clasped over her mouth. And – all of a sudden –out popped a goofy green monster all dressed up! And he was smiling. In that moment, the girl’s biggest Fear looked perfectly, wondrously ridiculous.”

“Just then, the monster sniffled. He said no one had ever been nice to him before, and he wondered if he could have a new name to go with his new dress. He didn’t want to be called Monster anymore. He asked simply to be called Giant.”

Anna and I giggled, and we finished the story together. We listened to that monster with his pleases and thank yous. A single tear slid down his cheek as he expressed his gratitude. We handed him a tissue. We laughed when the monster blew his nose with a loud honk, then asked Anna for a hug, which of course, she refused. And then we told the Giant — politely but firmly — that he was not allowed to live in her closet anymore. He would need to leave at once for a land far, far away, where other giants live. When he walked out the door, we saw a spiky green tail peeking out from underneath his polka-dotted dress.

And together, we laughed long and loud at a Fear that had lost its battle to Love.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out all fear.”  ~ 1 John 4:18

(Anna’s monster Giant drawing …)

Three Steps to Evicting Your Fear Monsters

Redraw: Our minds can draw dreadfully scary monsters. We manufacture fear in the form of rejection, loss of approval, being “found out,” or failure. Redrawing is scary, because it requires actively touching our fear. How does a person dare put her hand to something that she doesn’t want to even look at? With God’s help, we can redraw our fears — or erase them altogether. But first we need to muster up the courage to touch the thing we fear.  We need God’s Spirit to empower us.

Rename: What is your fear? Can you name it? Can you call it out from underneath the bed? Then, can you rename it? If your fear is a product of your insecurity or self-condemnation, take pity on your fear and rename it so it no longer has control over you. Turn the camera angle, or reframe the picture. Renaming our fears, and reclaiming our courage, takes away the power of unseen monsters.

Relocate: We have the authority, by God’s power in us, to serve eviction notices to our fears. But how? Through Christ’s love, of course. Let love drive it out, … this perfect love that casts out fear. Ask God to fling your fear to a land far, far away.

We’ve sung it a thousand times or more in the old hymn, Amazing Grace. Repeat the words again … “… and grace, my fears relieved.” Let God’s grace relieve your fear,  then step over to the other side.

More resources on battling fear:

This song …

This quote …

This verse …

This book …

Some call them coincidences. We call them God-incidences. And those goosebumps you get sometimes when you know the Holy Spirit is at work? Yep. They’re God-Bumps. The story I shared today is my contribution, because my daughter no longer has any scary goosebumps.

My mom brought me a new pair of shoes this weekend, a strappy fun pair of heels with a tall wedge platform.

I laughed out loud at the irony. I held up the shoe and said, “Mom, when I told you about ‘platform,’ you must have misunderstood.”

Our family has learned a new word this past year — this thing called platform — and it has nothing to do with cute shoes. But it really is about what we stand for — and what we stand on.

And we’re all standing on something. 

In the publishing world, platform holds great importance. It’s a word used to describe a writer’s audience and her ability to build interest in a message. As I  look for a publishing home for my nonfiction book, my platform has become increasingly important. Publishers reviewing proposals want to make sure writers have an audience for their words.

I get this: Publishing houses are real businesses taking financial risks on writers.

They understandably want to know: What am I standing on?

All the world is filled with platforms. And we’re stacking them higher, just to be seen. In a noisy world, we want to be heard.

We want to know that our voices, stories and accomplishments matter.

A lawyer stacks her platform high on a reputation for winning cases.

A teacher earns accolades from parents and students, building a platform of credibility.

A blogger widens her audience with “followers and fans.”

We measure influence by the numbers: people in the pews, Facebook friends, money in the offering plate, Twitter followers, checkbook balances and end-of-the-month sales reports. The higher the number, the bigger the reward: a raise, a pat on the back, or a promotion to the glass office.

I remember it now. I remember sitting in the fold-down seat of a university auditorium. I had my bangs teased high. It was freshman orientation at Iowa State. The woman up front had us on the edges of our seats when she asked us this question: “What do you want to be famous for?”

We had been given permission to be significant. Starry eyes twinkled. We wanted to be famous for something, anything.

The world loves significance, and it even has a number to measure your Klout. If we aren’t careful, we end up shining spotlights on the self, instead of the Savior… Even in the church.

Decades ago, A.W. Tozer wrote it down: “Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.”

I gulp when I re-read those words. I have to ask myself these questions: Have I ever trusted Google Analytics more than God?  Have I bowed to the stat counters, instead of to the Savior?

John the Baptist had something to say about that: “He (Jesus) must become greater, and I must become less.” I have those words typed out, a daily reminder of this truth.

But is it ever OK to climb higher, and if so, to what end?

In a culture that values excellence, is it ever advisable for a Christian to climb higher?

Just now, I remember Zacchaeus. He climbed. But why? Why did he aim to go higher? Why did he crawl up the branches of a sycamore tree, high above the crowds? I turn to Luke 19:4 to re-read ancient words. The nursery-school song rings afresh in my ears.

“So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.”

Zacchaeus climbed, not to be seen, but to see. A small man’s platform was one tree, scaled — the only way to see Jesus. Centuries later, Zacchaeus’ own climb becomes a vehicle for us to see the only One worth exalting — a Savior who went to one tree on Calvary.

I think of these two tree “platforms”:

One tree, scaled. (That of Zacchaeus.)
One tree, nailed.  (That, of Christ.)

So, this question: What if our only climbing led to two greater purposes: to see Jesus coming, nearer; to focus on the Cross of Christ, clearer.

And what if we used every platform to raise the Savior higher? What if — in the event that our “numbers” did in fact rise — we used our platforms only and always as a way to see God and to point to Him? 

What if the only fame became the Lord’s? What would the world look like then?

“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.” — Psalm 57:11

***

What if we realized, then, that the only way to really meet with Jesus, was to climb back down again.

I run my finger along Zacchaeus’ story in my Bible.

“When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’”

Jesus calls us to come down, and to bend lower to humble places where we always find him. Christ choose to dine with sinners. He invites me to a table where I have nothing to bring but this: my own wretchedness.

This singular truth humbles me daily.

In these places, we gather around tables and altars, not spotlighted stages. We share stories of grace, not successes. We seek the Father, not the fan-base.

In the end, the only work that really matters is that which glorifies the Father. Whether we are plumbers, or postal workers, or nurses or nannies, we are given these miraculous moments in which to exalt the name of Christ.  We all have platforms. How will we use them?  

If we do climb up, may we see and exalt only Him. May we never climb so high  that we can no longer hear the command of Christ: “Come down immediately.”

I climb down, take off the platform shoes, and stand bare-footed on Holy Ground, before a God who measures my worth not through my accomplishments, but through the lens of a Son’s humbling sacrifice.

I don’t think I can stand on any platform at all. I can only bow.

Joining Heather of the EO.

{In honor of mothers everywhere…}