“Bread”

   Do you remember the quartet from the 1970s, Bread?  Led by David Gates, this soft rock band released one chart-topping hit after another: Make It With You, It Don’t Matter to Me, Diary, Baby I’m a-Want You, Lost Without Your Love, etc. 

 

These guys made a career out of mournful, pull-at-the-heartstrings ballads.  I know.  I bought every album Bread released.  Not exactly a bright move for a teen who’d just been dumped by her boyfriend.  But I learned something from the experience.  Tender lyrics and beautiful orchestration aside, David Gates and company could put me in a blue funk for days.  Until I had an epiphany (aka: a “Duh moment.”).  For a melancholy like me, “Bread” was toxic. 

 

IBM was right: G.I.-G.O.  Computerese for Garbage In, Garbage Out.  Not that all Bread tunes are garbage, but sentimental, emotional lyrics dripping with enough sugar to land me in a diabetic coma was a poor choice for me.  So I got rid of ’em.  Fast.

 

What about you?

 

What do you listen to?  Watch on TV, the theater, or bring home from Blockbuster? What and who do you tune into?  What books do you read?  Why?  

 

IBM was right.  But the concept didn’t begin in Silicon Valley.  God’s Word puts it this way:  “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”  (Proverbs 4:23, to cite just one verse on the subject.)  

 

When it comes to true Bread, there’s only One.

 

by Kristine Lowder

“First… and Last?”

   Well.  That was a First.

 

Out with my faithful canine companion, Eve, on our morning walk the other day, I saw something I’ve never seen before. 

 

We’re chugging down the street, minding our own business when Chicken Little shows up.  Well, not quite.  It was actually a sparrow.  Whap!  The bird fell out of the sky. No warning, no squawking, no ruffled feathers.  He just dropped out of the sky like a ton of bricks.  A soundless thud.  Dead as a doornail.

 

I’ve no idea what Eve thought – she’s pretty unflappable – but Matthew 10:29-31 flew into my head:

 

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.  And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”  (NIV)

 

Talk about attentive!  This hits home when you’ve just moseyed past a “dead doornail.”  I’ll never look at a sparrow quite the same way again.

 

Kristine Lowder

 

 

 

“Water Slide!”

   Josiah, son number four, is whooshing down the water slide at the YMCA today.  He’s nine years old, going on 23.  He loves slamming the stuffing out of a baseball, tree swings a la Tarzan, riding bikes at warp speed, and “dare devil-ing” (don’t ask!).  Whether it’s re-enacting the invasion of Normandy, defending the Alamo, scouting the Cumberland Gap “Boone style”, or winging it through Pearl Harbor in ’41, Josiah thrives on imagination, action and adventure.

 

Do you?

 

Do you long for adventure?  To live beyond “blah” or the daily grind?  To be part of a bigger story, something larger than yourself?  As Brent Curtis writes in The Sacred Romance:

 

“The deepest part of our heart longs to be bound together in some heroic purpose with others of like mind and spirit” (p. 19).

 

Consider the invitation of Jesus Christ: 

 

“…I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. 

Do you believe this?” (John 11:25, NIV)

 

Talk about an Invitation to Adventure with “heroic purpose”!  The Lord Jesus invites us into a bigger story, larger than you or me.  It’s all about Him.  An adventure that’s even better than the water slide at the Y!

 

By Kristine Lowder

 

For further reading:

The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God

By Brent Curtis & John Eldredge

Thomas Nelson, 1997

ISBN: 0-7852-6723-9

 

Epic: The Story God is Telling and the Role That is Yours to Play

By John Eldredge

Thomas Nelson, 2004

ISBN: 0-7852-6531-7

Waiting & Longing

Thomas a Kempis wrote, “Wait a little while, O my soul, wait for the divine promise, and thou shalt have abundance of all good things in heaven.”

Have you noticed?  We’re expanded by longing.  Something grows in us as we focus heart, mind, soul and will Homeward.  Romans 8:24-25 says: “That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother.  We are enlarged in the waiting.  We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us.  But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.” (The Message.)

As pastor and author Rick Warren writes, “In order to keep us from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life – longings that will never be fulfilled on this side of eternity.”

We’re not completely happy here because we’re not supposed to be!   We forget that for believers, earth isn’t our final home.  We were redeemed for something much better!

Waiting and longing.  Neither is easy.  But there can be a “sweet pain” in both if we let them draw our hearts toward Home.

Shared by: Kristine, professional mom, blogger, author, homeschooler, humorist, and chief wrangler at the ‘ole “testosterone farm.”

Exploring the delightful, sometimes dangerous and always mysterious realm of Christian womanhood: http://www.HEvencense.wordpress.com

You’ll Be Home, Part 2 of 2

Curious verb choice, isn’t it?  Was.  Not is.  Past tense.  After all, these men had hoped that Jesus would redeem Israel, deliver her from under the heavy boot of Rome.  But now it’s too late.  Jesus is dead.  Buried in that borrowed crypt.  Sure, some women claimed they’d been to Jesus’ tomb and found it empty, but they were clearly a cup and a saucer short of a place setting.

What was Jesus thinking?  Did he smile?  Suppress a grin?  Nope.  He proclaims this teary twosome “foolish” and “slow of heart to believe.” (verse 25)  Then he gives them a refresher course in Moses and the Prophets 101.

Incredibly, they still don’t get it.  (Ah, the benefit of 2000/2000 hindsight!)  As the trio approaches a village, Jesus acts as if he’s going further.  They urge him to stay the night with them, which he does.  Can you imagine their faces at the table later when Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it and gives it to them?

“Hmmmm… this seems a little familiar….Haven’t we seen something like this before… Do you remember that afternoon in Bethsaida, with the loaves and the fishes….?  Remember when Je….. Hey!!!!!”

Do you recognize the risen Lord?  Have you left the “big city” and set out for Emmaus?  Keep walking.  Keep looking.  Remember you’re only a visitor on this earthly sod, and you never know whom you may meet on the journey.  Somewhere up ahead you’ll recline at a table.  Bread will be broken and served by nail-scarred hands.  Soon, perhaps in the twinkling of an eye, the dust of the day and the weariness of the walk will fall away and you’ll be a visitor no more.  You’ll be Home.

By Kristine, author, blogger, humorist, homeschooler, professional mom.

(Part 1 posted on April 14.)