The Things We Superglue

The kids were at Walmart on Christmas Eve morning as I was getting out our Santa cup and plate. The handle had been broken off the cup for two years--how is it possible that I hadn't had the two minutes it takes to glue on a handle for two years???

I called my last minute shoppers and had them pick up some superglue. By the end of the day, the glue had been used four times. I dropped and broke the remaining coffee cup from my favorite set -- a Starbucks limited collection of three. Then I was trying to clasp a chain on which hung a glass cross Danica had given me. One end slipped from my fingers and the cross clattered to the tile floor and broke. Later, I placed a large gift on the coffee table and knocked over my Jesus, Mary and Joseph figure (ironic, don't you think?). And then I broke my fingernail (no superglue for that!)

All I can say is thank goodness I had some superglue.

Alot of things get broken in a home, many of which can't be fixed. Some things could be fixed, but it's just not worth it. The things we superglue are the things we value. Anyone else looking at them might question why we're bothering but, for whatever reason, they mean something to us.

I've mentioned more than once that 2011 was one of my hardest years, in third place behind 1990 and 1995. There was literally no time most days to cook, clean, watch TV, spend time with my husband, write or do something fun--and that includes weekends. As I look back, I realize it's because I was busy trying to superglue--perhaps unnecessarily--the things I valued:

The Mulume family: Despite countless hours of effort and prayer, I was not able to glue this family back together. I did get sole custody of Boris, but his younger siblings went into a situation that is way less than ideal. These five kids, whose mother died 18 months ago, are separated by miles and many other limitations (including a father that is trying to keep the younger ones away from the older ones).

As the dust settles, I see that though they're not physically together, they're still connected. They stay in touch. I know that when they're all grown, the bond between them will still be there and be strong. I could feel that I failed, but I don't because I did what God asked me to do and left the outcome to Him.
In the looking back--as I burn the memories of conflict with those who opposed me, spoke ill of me in my community and thoughtlessly added a lot of extra weight to the burden I was already carrying--what rises out of the ashes is the realization that God never said standing in the gap for someone was easy. In fact, He showed through Jesus that it isn't. I realized that in some ways, this family can't be superglued at this time, but they desperately needed to know someone was on their side so they wouldn't lose hope. In exchange for that hope, I gained the love of five souls.

My own family: Now that I'm parenting three teenagers, each one of whom had (and failed) a defining moment or two this year, I see that they are who they are. I'm not molding them anymore. Now I'm standing to the side with encouragement, a little guidance when they'll take it, and (hardest of all) the strength not to rescue them. My job seems to be making sure they're connecting the right dots between cause and effect. I'm not supergluing--in fact, it's just the opposite. The superglue of their childhoods is becoming brittle, just as it should. I still hold us all together, but not with the tight, cheek-to-cheek bond of superglue. Despite what I didn't do that I should have, or did that shouldn't have, all three really love me.

My marriage: Wow, that thing could use some superglue! It's been neglected in this difficult year. Some of the breakage doesn't make for a clean repair; some of the little pieces got lost in the shuffle. It'll never be the tight fit of newlyweds who are so bonded that the only movement possible is away from each other. Out of necessity, we've stumbled into a kind of loose togetherness. As we see the horizon of an empty nest in the not too far off future, it makes us want to stick together more, but with less expectation and more acceptance of each other's failings. Though at times my marriage added to the weight I carried, there is no doubt that Steve loves me.

Me: In 2011, I often felt like I was falling apart. The thing that held me together was Jesus. He was my superglue. But like all these other areas I've mentioned, the spiritual joints of me are not stiff and static, like a superglued statue, or even rotatable like a doll's arms and legs. I'm a constantly shifting collection of atoms, easily scattered when a fist crashes down on my head, but then somehow, everything finds its way back to the center, who is Him. There are scars on the outside, but there is an inner strength that needs no repair. It's kind of remarkable to grasp the picture through my own difficult year that sometimes your body is needed in order to hold things together for other people.

Steven Covey says in his book, The Speed of Trust, that self-trust and integrity are formed when we make commitments to ourselves and keep them. I love that I was chosen and followed through. I gained a new level of self-love that helps me accept my mistakes, my aging body with its extra 2011-stress-induced-weight, and my complete inability to fix things.

Brokenness is a common theme of mine, but I've been shown a new layer of the dynamics of repair. The SuperGlue of Jesus is flexible. If you hold onto Him, everything that needs to come together will come together, but always in a new form. You may have to grieve the loss of the old form but, if you just wait, you'll see that you will survive the new configuration. And eventually you see Jesus in it. You will discover love in it.

My Jesus, Mary and Joseph figurine says it all. Click on the picture to enlarge it and notice that there is a gap in Mary's sleeve. And though Joseph's hand is broken off (and was never found), he still holds his staff. These two imperfect parents, who could have--because of an unexpected baby--called it quits before it even began, are instead held together by this Jesus who remains perfect--uninjured, unchipped--in the fall that marred His parents.

Yet, we know that His body was required to make their story our story.

May 2012 be for you a year of celebrating the new form of the broken things in your life made possible by the SuperGlue of Jesus, and of finding the courage to remain standing in the gap for those who need it, even if it seems it will crush you.

Be brave! Wait for the Love behind it all!

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work ~ Ephesians 4:16

Pausing in the Current

The last of the jewels of autumn are glowing like watercolors in the soggy, winter etching that is overtaking the world. I snapped this photo on a rainy day that seemed to last two weeks. The tree was literally the only bright spot in my day.

I’ve noticed that I appreciate the intricacies of the seasons more and more as I get older. I think of glimpses like this as little presents from God tucked here and there to take my breath away--and also my attention away from things that are hard.

He does that other ways too. A few weeks ago I was reading Emmett Fox’s Sermon on the Mount. I got a hold of a chewy chunk-o-Scripture (Matthew 25 ~ the parable of the talents). The idea that “whoever has will be given more, even more than he needs, and whoever has not, even what he has will be taken away” gave me pause. It’s really just about the law of reciprocity…that what you give out is what you get more of.

It almost doesn’t seem fair, does it? You’re going through a hard time that drags on and on, and you get weary. You forget how to love in the midst of your struggle. Pretty soon, you’ve got even more hard times. The sparkler in this wisdom is that it's actually far better than fair—it’s a gift. It’s a little revolving door that can turn your direction around on a dime if you know how to go through it.

You choose whether you are a “person who has” or a “person who has not” through your gratitude and abundance thinking, or through your bitter, fearful, scarcity-thinking. It’s a matter of knowing, like the talent-holders in the parable of the talents, that your God is someone who can grow a tree without planting a seed--and then turn it into a rainbow. And oh, how this powerful, artsy God loves us!

The seasons are out of our hands, but what if we are not as bound to our own rhythms as we are to nature’s? What if, as our seasons change, we refuse to wait for the brutal tearing and messy sloughing of shedding skin, learning our lessons inch by inch? Why couldn’t we simply step out of 2011 before its threadbare places burst apart, and press toward our new beginning that starts now, not in 2012?

Fox says that “pausing in the current of the material to remember what we know to be true about God” is the essence of prayer. I checked that against my own prayer life, which seemed—lately—a little more like whining and worrying than pausing in the current of the material. The current had, in fact, washed me away. The idea of pausing made me pause some more, gradually lifting my head and turning my thoughts to what do I know to be true about God?

The answer beckons me to take off the coat of this year that I no longer need and leave it behind without a backward glance. To run naked into this new season of mine, having no pretenses that I'm armed and ready, or dressed to kill. There is no false image foolery to give me strength. I'm worn out and used up from a 12-month bad dream. I'm poured out. I'm undone.

Which means I'm ready for the kind of extraordinary things that happen when we let the real us show and operate from the only strength we truly have--His.

The real you may feel a little broken and bleeding, beat up and sore, exhausted and hopeless, or ashamed and afraid. The sparkler: those are just currents. Pause in them and remember what you know to be true about God. Then bravely step out of the current, letting it sweep on down to the sea, taking that old skin of yours with it.

Now you’re ready to look up, too.

Enjoy this short, very cute encouragement to look up from American Airlines. It's a timely reminder far more significant than literal air travel! Just hit the Play Now button when you get there.