Monthly Archives: September 2015

Not my circus, not my monkeys

24 Thursday Sep 2015

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I loved it when the teacher asked me to take names when she left the room. (Do they even do that anymore!?!) I wanted everyone to be doing what they’re supposed to be, even when the teacher wasn’t watching.

Lest you think I was the tattle-tail of Mrs. Temple’s first grade class at Rena Bulluck Elementary School in rural Pleasant Garden, NC, I didn’t WANT to tell the teacher if anyone was unruly. I would instead “encourage” them to behave in her absence.

Although I’ve prided myself in never getting a spanking in school — and if I HAD gotten one, I’d’ve gotten another one when I got home — I DID get my hand paddled with a ruler, I spent quite a bit of time in the corner, and I was forever writing sentences. I still remember what I had to write: I must learn to listen. There were two reasons I had to stand in the corner, got my hand paddled, or had to write sentences:

  1. I was talking to my friends when I was supposed to be quiet.
  2. I’d go around and “help” all the other kids with their work when I finished mine, even though I’d been told to stay in my seat.

Fast forward from the first grade to high school, circa 1981.

Same “helper”. Defined: enabler. It’s been said that “helping” is the sunny side of “control”. I’ve actually been known to write term papers for people — don’t tell Mrs. Loggins! Why couldn’t I look around and say, “Not my circus, not my monkeys?” I carried problems that weren’t mine to bear even as a teenager.

Same friends. Here are five of us in the 10th grade. There are more girls, but sadly I don’t have a picture of all of us!

5cis

Same mouth. I wasn’t in the National Honor Society. Oh I had the grades. But back in the day you also had to have good conduct grades. I wasn’t rude or disrespectful to my teachers. I didn’t cheat on tests.  Although I usually had all A’s, it was glaringly apparent which classes I had with my friends, especially Misty or Tammie, who were quite the talkers as well. It didn’t matter when the teacher moved us to opposite sides of the room, we would just pass notes and use hand signals.

A typical conversation every time I brought a new report card home:

Daddy:  Well I can see you have a few classes with Misty or Tammie. Any IDIOT can sit there and SHUT UP.

Me: But Daddy! If I can talk the entire time the teacher is talking and STILL make an A, doesn’t that mean I’m super smart!?!

He never bought it. He would waltz right in my room, unplug my rotary phone, and slam it down beside his recliner — where it would stay until I brought up my conduct grade. Then I had to use the phone in the kitchen, trying to stretch the cord as far down the hall as I could. It was a fate worse than death.

Now I’m all grown up (more or less). Those three things haven’t changed since the first grade.

The mouth: Still gets me in trouble from time to time, but honestly, I’m a lot better than I used to be. My daddy and my teachers tried their best, but only God could work that miracle!

The friends: My school friends are still my best friends. As adults, we still laugh too hard and talk too loud (again, mostly me, Tammie and Misty!). These girls have walked me through every mountaintop and valley of my life.

ci2

The “helper”: This one caused me to hit rock bottom. I was barely alive from trying to keep all the plates spinning. I found out the hard way that sometimes, actually MOST times, what other people are doing isn’t my business, even when it seems it is my circus and those are my monkeys!

In the last recorded conversation Jesus had with Peter in John 21, Jesus is trying to tell him something very important. It’s Peter’s life mission, laid out by the Savior Himself. Jesus told Peter: “Care for My sheep” (that’s us!). When you REALLY need your kids to do something, you don’t trust telling them once. Sometimes you tell them twice, or even three times. This wasn’t just important for Peter to do, it was vital. So Jesus told him three times.

At this point, one might think Peter would say, “Can you give me a four point sermon on how to do that? What exactly do you mean when you say, ‘feed Your lambs’ and ‘take care of Your sheep‘? I want to make sure I’m doing it right!”

Nope, not Peter. This is the same dude who impetuously jumped out of the boat and walked on water until he took his eyes off Jesus. Same guy who denied Jesus with a curse the night of His crucifixion. I bet he was as shocked as everyone else to hear what came out of his mouth sometimes. (I can relate!)

Instead of continuing the discussion about the directive to care for the sheep, Peter incredulously asks in verse 21,

Lord, what about him?

Oh I can see this scene now. He gives a quick nod towards John. Let’s move on past what You want ME to do, Lord, and talk about what You want HIM to do. What’s the deal with John? 

Jesus’ response:

What is that to you? You must follow me.

I think Jesus was saying (if Jesus had spoken Southernese), “You ain’t John. You’re Peter. What happens to him ain’t your beeswax. Forget about what I want John to do and worry about what I want YOU to do.”

Those are words for us “fixers” to live by. I’m not the Holy Spirit. I need to keep my focus on MY mission, not anyone else’s. I can’t fix people. I tried, and I crashed and burned in epic form. Not that I don’t help people when they ask. I probably do too much for my children even now, but I’m a work in progress. My life has much less chaos when I clean up my side of the street and leave everyone else to clean up theirs.

Of all the things I’ve had since I was six, I think I’ll keep my BFF’s, watch my mouth, and leave fixing people to God. After all, this is HIS circus, and WE ALL are His monkeys. He can handle the spinning plates better than I ever could.

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A Multitude of Sins

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Love Your World

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Back when my life consisted of stay-at-home wife and mothering and ministering to teenagers, there was a boy named Robert in our youth group. He was from a different high school than the other kids, and his mother made him come because she just didn’t know what to do with him anymore. She was a single mom, trying her best to raise an angry teenage son on her own. This boy hated God and flies and everything in between. All the rest of the kids were at least intimidated, and mostly scared of him. It seemed he wanted to be left alone, and they obliged his wish.

I didn’t leave him alone. I always spoke, always gave him a quick hug and told him I was happy to see him. He’d grunt and nod. That was about all I got out of him, but I figured surely he needed to know someone was glad he was there.

On trips, we always took a caravan of 15-passenger vans, and if we didn’t have enough youth workers to drive, parents would help. There were no cell phones back then. The only way to communicate was two-way radios. On our way back from camp that particular Spring, a mom driving one of the vans radioed me to say she needed help. There was a boy on her van trying to kick the back window out. I told her to pull over into a parking lot and I’d handle it.

That boy was Robert. He was about 200 pounds of muscle, and I realized right off the bat he didn’t really want to kick the window out, or it would already be shattered on the pavement.

I had 14 high schoolers on my van, and she had 14 on hers. Every one of them had eyes as big as saucers as Robert kept kicking.

“Robert, come on off the van. Let’s talk.”

“Nope.”

“Okay then, everyone else off.” Thirteen other teenagers silently slid off their seats and stood in the parking lot as I tried in vain to reason with him.

“Robert, you don’t want to kick out the window. Your mom will have to pay for it, and you know she won’t be happy.”

“I don’t care.”

“Then kick it out if it you need to. Matter of fact, I’ll pay for it myself. Obviously something has upset you pretty badly, and for some reason, kicking out a church van window will make you feel better.

But know this. If you’re trying to make me mad at you, if you’re trying to make me not like you, if you think I’ll tell you that you can’t come back anymore, it’s not working. I’m still going to want you, still going to like you, still going to want you to come back, and I’m still going to love you. So do whatcha gotta do, man. ‘Bruce Lee‘ that sucker on outta there.”

With that, I sat back, crossed my arms, and waited for his next move. Somehow, some way, the Spirit of God let me see into his heart for a split second, and I saw a hurting young man. The pain in his eyes shone through just long enough for me to have compassion, long enough for me to see through his tough guy image and get a glimpse of a young man who needed love. Unconditionally.

He looked at me like I had two heads. He couldn’t believe what he’d heard — but he stopped kicking.

“You don’t care if I kick out this window?”

“Nope.”

“You’re going to pay for it yourself?”

“Yep.”

“And you’d still want me to come back?”

“Yep. Nothing you can do will make me not want you to come back. Nothing you can do will make me not love you. So kicking out this window will be a complete waste of time, but hey, rock on with your bad self, dude.”

After a few seconds of staring at me in shock. His face broke into a smile.

“You’re a crazy lady,” he said.

I smiled back. “That’s what they tell me.”

He grinned some more and I said, “Can we head home now that you realize kicking out the window is a waste of time?” He agreed we could.

From that day on, Robert loved me back. He smiled every time he saw me. He would wrap those big arms around me and hug me hard, so hard I couldn’t breathe. When he’d get to church, he always sought me out, no matter where I was. And he never left without saying goodbye. He wasn’t much for chitchat, but he was always cordial. We never had another day’s trouble out of him.

I’d like to say I’m still close to Robert, but the truth is, he moved away and I never heard from him again. I don’t know if he ever found anyone to see though his tough as nails exterior into his heart. But this one thing I know — that day, that one day, he found out he was loved no matter how unlovely he behaved.

Oh don’t get me wrong, if MY kids had been doing that, I’d have beaten them like red headed stepchildren! They might never have seen the light of day again! But Robert didn’t need any more discipline, he didn’t need any more anger, anyone else to tell him what a bad kid he was. I imagine he’d seen and heard quite a bit of that in his 17 years. What he needed was for someone, anyone, to see he was hurting. Something on the inside of him was so painful that it had to come out.

One Scripture kept going through my mind that day. Proverbs 15:1,

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

What good would a shouting match have been? If I’d started yelling at Robert, do you think he would have stopped? Heck no. That window would have been toast. And I dang sure wasn’t gonna physically remove him. He was twice my size. I’m tough, but I ain’t that tough!

I Peter 4:8 says,

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Look around you. Listen closely. Sometimes those who are the least lovable are the ones who need it the most.

The very last thing this world needs is one more angry voice. Be the soft answer that turns away wrath. A multitude of sins doesn’t stand a chance against love.

Bowls of Incense

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Strength for the Journey

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As a child, I vividly recall praying that I would die before my Grandma Bunton — as well as before my dog, Snoop. God didn’t answer either of those prayers. Snoop drew the short straw in a fight with another neighborhood dog when I was in the 2nd grade. Thankfully, I kept Grandma until she was 92 years old.

Grandma and Grandpa Bunton raised 11 children on a farm in eastern Guilford County, North Carolina. They had very little, but at the risk of sounding cliche, they had a lot of love. Grandma, Aunt Bet and Aunt Lillian still lived in the  “Old House,” as we call it, when state took the land for the new I-85 bypass, and it was well over 150 years old. From my earliest memories, it was my favorite place in the world.

dee old houseYou can tell a lot about my grandparents by this picture of me on the back porch. Grandma loved her flowers, Grandpa loved his shotgun, and they both loved me (and all of their dozens of grandchildren). I still have that chair in my bedroom, and there it will always stay.

Grandma had a four poster cherry bed, and every night at bedtime she would read her Bible. She read the whole thing through every year. Year after year after year. When she was finished, she’d kneel by that bed to pray. No “Now I lay me down to sleep” for her. Every time I ever spent the night with her, I would lay in bed saying, “Hurry up and finish praying, Grandma! I’m cold!” I wanted her to snuggle with me! But she would just shake her head and keep praying. Her words were muffled, but I knew what she was saying. She called every one of our names in prayer every night — every child, every grandchild, and she wasn’t about to let an impatient little girl rush her time with the Lord.

On one of those nights when I was snuggled up to her in bed, I asked her if I could have that bed when she died. She promised me that I could. And Grandma Bunton never broke her word.

She was the godliest, kindest, strongest woman I ever knew. No matter who you were, you were welcome at her table, and she was the best cook ever. Homemade biscuits at every meal. She cleaned and canned and froze and sewed and every other thing a Southern woman should know how to do. And I wanted to be just like her.

grandma bunton2

When she grew too old to get on her knees anymore, she would raise up and grip the side of the mattress to pray. She was still kneeling in her heart. Early in the morning on March 27, 1996, she sat up, took a deep breath and laid back down. She wasn’t sick, it was simply time. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the face of Jesus.

I wanted to be like her as much in my 30’s as I did as a child. In her honor, and to follow her as she followed Jesus, I set out to know the Word and be a woman of prayer. For 11 straight years, I read the Bible through, and I continue to be thankful for her example to encourage me to be a student of Scripture.

Several years after she died, I got that bed just when I needed it most. I’ve had people ask me if it bothered me that she died in it. On the contrary, it made it all the more special to me. Luke 16:22 says when Lazarus died, the angels came and carried him to Heaven. How wonderful to sleep where angels had come to carry my Grandma to Heaven!

I felt a bit lost without her, knowing that no one prayed for me like she did. What joy filled my soul when I got to Revelation 5:8 and found out there are

golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.

Every prayer my Grandma Bunton prayed for me, and every other member of our family are still there. They are a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord, and they are yet before Him. They’re still powerful, still bringing results, still a testimony to her faithfulness and love for us. Her legacy lives on here on earth, and in Heaven, in golden bowls full of incense.

If you had a praying grandparent or parent, and they’ve gone on, be encouraged. Their prayers continue on. And if you have been afraid your own prayers were just bouncing off the ceiling, floating off into space, if you thought your deepest anguish was carried away with the wind, not true, my friend. Your heart felt hopes and pleas live on as well.

If you’re thinking, “I haven’t had anyone love me enough to pray for me that way,” you’d be wrong. One who loves you more than anyone else ever could prayed for you, over 2000 years ago! In John 17, Jesus is praying for His disciples, asking God to strengthen and protect them to do His work. Oh but praise be to God, He doesn’t stop with just them. He goes on to say in 20 and 21,

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

He prayed for US — for you, for me. A very specific prayer. He wanted us to be one, not divided. He prayed that we would be FULL of joy and be protected from evil. His prayer wasn’t just for that day. His prayer lives on today in Heaven, in a bowl full of incense, with all the prayers of the saints.

In the times of my life when I’ve felt all alone in the world with no one to help me make it, reminding myself that there are bowls in Heaven that are prayers for me, prayers of those who loved me, and prayers of Jesus Himself, made me feel safe and loved. Rest your weary soul tonight and remind yourself of the same thing.

Thank You, Jesus, for the prayers of the saints, for Your prayers for all of us. Thank You that those prayers are effective even now, in bowls of incense before Your throne. May Your words for us be true — may we be One, may we be FULL of joy, and may we be protected from the evil one. In Your Name, and for Your glory.