The Moment Of Crisis

TriMo Begins September 1st 2005 / Ends November 31st 2005
875/50,000 Words Written

Things to do today (yeah right… I know it won’t all get done.)


Home: Sort through my inbox (always!) Today I have begun the TriMo novel I am working on with Tim. I am excited! Also today I have my friend Lindsey coming to visit. She moved recently and so visits from her will be an “on purpose” thing and so are treasured!

Ritt’s End LLC: Write, stuff and mail a fall-season parent letter. This happens to coincide with the dreaded billing that I am working on today. I did get all my fliers delivered like I wanted, so that’s good.

Church: Base Camp (evening meetings): Today I need to get FirstWork out… It’s days late because of the influx of kids for the daycare. Business is good, but it wrecks havoc on all the other plates I spin!

Notebored: Today is Friday, that means I close down the writing period for this weeks challenge and set up the polls, fess up thread and guessing frenzy threads. Monday I’ll close the polls and set up a “reveal thyself” thread where we find out who wrote what story.

Writers Hideout E-Zine: Okay, I admit that nothing has happened yet beyond my mock up and crazy idea for how to market it. But, I am afraid that if I don’t put it out there in front of me, I will loose it in the shuffle. Plus, when I am working on it, I have a place to record progress.

Current Book(s) I am reading for fun: I finished Drums of Autumn and am on to the next in the series, The Fiery Cross, by Diana Gabaldon.

Books (s) I am learning from: Shattered Dreams – Larry Crab, A Young Woman after God’s Own Heart – Elizabeth George. Shattered Dreams is the book I am journaling through, where I read a chapter and then spend my quiet times internalizing the truths and letting the Spirit lead me through the Word for confirmation and prayer in applying those principals. A Young Woman After God’s Own Heart is the book that my daughter and I are working through in my discipleship time with her. I am LOVING the time with her alone, without any of the other girls competing for my attention.

Movies(s) I have rented or bought: Hmmm, nothing new recently.

Friday, September 02, 2005

The Moment Of Crisis

So many changes since I last wrote! Where to start? Well, Ritt’s End is growing. I will be applying for a new license for up to 12 children, and hiring on help. Business is that good these days. I have two people coming to interview for placing their kids in my care. Yikes! One of them is today at 2:30, Do I have anything clean in my closet to wear for that “first impression” that doesn’t have spit up or food stains? Most of my wardrobe these days is sweatpants and t-shirts…. Ah well, I will stress about that at 2:00 and not now. I also have a few people on the line to interview for the position of helping me as an aid.

The Raeburns, have already agreed to help (One will help me while the other one home schools their kids and they’ll trade off.) They have both quit their other jobs so as to launch into their own ministry. They are Christian clowns who do balloons and VBS’s all over the nation. (And I get them for my daycare until they are able to transition to ministry full time!!!!) You can read up about them at www.RedNoseMinistries.com. If you or your organization has any questions about booking them, you can contact them through their site.

So, the business is growing, and that’s good news. On the “every day side of things…I am glad that I got billing done yesterday. Today, I will stuff envelopes and get them in the mail.

Yesterday my girls found out about the terrible circumstances in New Orleans. It was very hard for them. I will tell you though, as a mother, I am terribly proud of my girls. They understood the enormity of the situation and their very first response was to respond with tenderness. No, I don’t enjoy seeing them cry or be hurt, but it goes deeper than that. Since we don’t have television programming in our house (only videos that we buy borrow or rent) my girls aren’t hardened by the media’s attempt to dramatize real tragedies or trivialize casual violence. They responded with tender hearts, and out of that response, prayer and help was the first thing that came out of them, well after the tears that is. So, we are deciding how we can best help as a family. I have already donated to the Red Cross, but it seems to me that there is more we can do.

It makes me grateful for the life that I have, but wary too. It’s all an illusion, you know, these things we cling to so tightly. None of those things has the ability give back. No matter how busy my schedule is (and like most Americans, I pack it) I fight to remember that these things around me, and the seeming importance of what I do, will pass away. They aught not be the thing that defines me or where I put my trust.

I know that something like this can happen here, just as easily as it did there. Because I have focused so strongly on building relationships, relationships with my God and with neighbor, even if the house and everything in it is gone, I won’t have to worry that I spent my life’s energy on something that fire, flood, quake or war can destroy. I will grieve it if it goes, sure, but the temptation in my everyday life is to be swayed by what I see, what gets waived under my nose to draw me away from what is most important… that being, my God and the people I come in contact with every day.

I realize that this may sound as though I am being self inflated, and I will take that risk, but the heart of what I am trying to get at is that for those who have poured their lives into their houses, their jobs, their soccer clubs, their gyms… and now it’s gone… what are they to do?

A bible verse comes to mind, let me go look it up and make sure I am using it in the right context before I type in here. Yes, here it is:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1st Peter 1:3-9

Because I have taken this stand with Christ, I view terrible circumstances “grief in all kinds of trials” as the passage says, within a context of opportunities to deepen my faith. There is a saying “That which does not kill us, shall surely make us stronger” it’s the old fight or flight moment, the moment of crisis where you must dig in deeper and cling all the tighter to your faith or run from that belief because it’s let you down in some way. God, “allowing” such a thing in your life.

But what about those who don’t know Jesus? The ones who have never been tenderly held in his hand while they weep, or defended from the enemy simply because they have taken his protection? What are they to do? Who do they go to in their crisis? What do they do when all they have worked for is in ruins at their feet? Do they run faster from God? Do they cling to him as the only anchor that makes sense in the flood?

These are the ones I pray for, the survivors who must navigate the road of life after the waters have destroyed all the landmarks and bridges. Those who have lost loved ones and now must go on alone. My heart breaks and I weep for those who shake their fist at God for not protecting them from disaster when they never appealed to Him for protection by bending to His authority in their life. I pray that as they meet this crisis, and they view so close at hand how fragile this earthly life is, that the immortal God, will draw them into his embrace. For the rain falls on the just and the unjust. God, who did not spare his son from mortal death, is far more concerned with the state of our spirits. Yes, he allows terrible things to happen, becoming a follower is not protection from sickness or death. I cry for those who are lost. But more, I am deeply grieved for those who have met this crisis of faith and held even tighter to the anger. It bolts the doors of their spirit from the God who wants so badly to bring them into relationship and comfort them. The bible says “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the father except through me.”(John 11:25) Heaven, the’ goal of our faith’ as the passage above says, is reached through Him alone. I see Jesus sitting at the outside door of their hearts, knocking, pleading with them not to be angry any more but to come into discussion with Him.

So much pain. So much loss. I have spent the morning I should have been writing in my TriMo novel, unable to concentrate on anything but the strong need to pray for that segment of people who are dealing with what was left from Hurricane Katrina.

I am not usually this preachy. I don’t mean to chase people off with my viewpoints, but my heart is broken and this is what leaks out. The purpose of pain and loss is that it acts as a refiner’s fire.

For the thousands of people who shiver tonight for lack of heat, here is my prayer. I pray that the questions on mortality, the “why’s” that are raised, will be a fire that is kindled within them. That their crisis moment will be hedged from the enemy so that while those inner walls are down and they are vulnerable, questioning God, He will answer them in their deep and hungry places. I pray that those who have survived will find the courage to stand and talk to him and not run in blind anger. I pray for the children, and homeless, the defenseless ones who are now drifting on the currents of charity. And last of all, I pray for me and my family, that we would be your hands, and that you would show us how to act. Amen.

Well, my children are now down and getting breakfast, the daycare kids are here and asking for some breakfast too. It’s time to set aside my quiet time of the morning and move on with my day. My heart will linger here though as I go through the motions.

Thank you, reader, for sticking with me as I verbalized my thoughts. I realize that you may not share my faith, I pray you were not offended or felt as though I were trying to proselytize you. But I am grateful if you stayed long enough to let me share my heart’s prayer.