"The balm of gratitude"

I stole this phrase from Anne Lamott. I'd like to extrapolate on my gratitude, because I do believe it's a balm beyond comparison. I'm thankful for the way God reveals things to us. As Lamott puts it, "if you are paying attention, plenty is being revealed" (2012:52). And I do believe that; I've seen God reveal the truth to me lately in a way that sets me free, a way that helps me realize that the old wineskin just won't do anymore.

Gratitude is a balm of relief because it takes us to the place of revelation and reframing (Lamott's words, again). It takes us out of our fear of pain and failure and into a place where we feel the delights of sand on our toes, the eyefull of a ocean shore, and the reassuring warmth of the sun on our skin -- again. The Lord seeks to refresh us from our weary states, and to enable us to live fully again, no matter what is needing balm. His balm is all-in-one. I'm so thankful for the resilience I find in Him. I bounce back changed every time, not worse off than before, but understanding a bit more about how He loves me, and experiencing in a new way his balm of comfort, freedom, and power.

Rich Soil is Hard Won

Excerpts from Larry Crabb's book, Inside Out:

"The richest love grows in the soil of an unbearable disappointment with life. When we realize life can't give us what we want, we can better give up our foolish demand that it do so and get on with the noble task of loving as we should. we will no longer need to demand protection from further disappointment. The deepest change will occur in the life of a bold realist who clings to God with a passion only his realistic appraisal of life can generate" (Crabb 2007:235).

"The more directly [one] faces  the pain in [one's] life, the more [one] ache[s], and the more [one] ache[s], the more [one] beg[ins] to see God as [one's] one and only hope" (p. 349).

"The Kids Will Teach You Stuff"

That's what my bosses said as they described how the high school students they work with tell them most of what they know about how to serve them better. Really, says B, it's all about conveying to the children that you care about them. It can be so simple to show care. They do it by putting great summer camp enrichment opportunities on their radar screens, and making these seem manageable to their parents and desirable over a do-nothing vege-out summer. They also show care by providing summer job opportunities to instill in them the necessary familiarity with work and the thrill of a paycheck. Or, care can be as simple as taking them for car rides in their convertible to watch the movie "42" on a Sunday afternoon, when S. held onto her hair when B warned them before starting the ignition, "hold onto any papers or anything because they might blow away." That's actually not the relevant story to illustrate this point, but it's funny, so it's worth recording.

But B, on another occasion, took another student to a church (for an errand or something), and after the student looked closely at photos posted on the walls downstairs, concluded about what type of church it was (i.e., what kind of people go there), and B. realized she was right, and hadn't realized that herself without the student's astute, close, between-the-lines observations. (I can't deny, my little sociologist self smiled at this one: a social observer in our midst!)

B, my other boss, talked about the time when some boys were catching a ride home after school and commented that if only he got rims on his pick-up truck, then all the kids who are attracted to the gang life but actually don't like being caught up in it would turn their glance to a better leader to follow. And B said, at first he thought little of the idea. Then he tried it, and it worked.