#lookingup

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2 min

From Anger to Forgiveness

Ever had someone cuss you out in a nonstop blue streak of the worst possible names? I have. I tell you, teachers put up with a lot. When I gave a kid (who was also rude and sassy) a low grade because zilch effort had gone into an assignment, his mother made an appointment with me. I had a hunch what might lie ahead, so I asked both my administrator and a teaching peer to sit in on the conversation. It was more like a confrontation. Every awful word in the book was screamed at

3 min

The Doughnut Draw to Faith

I grew up in a church-going family, but Sunday meant one thing for me: doughnuts. Sunday was a big production. My sister and I got dropped off early, about 8:30 a.m., for girls choir practice, then we sang for the 9 a.m. service up front in the choir pews, which faced each other in front of the altar. The service was a liturgical one, which would have made me nod off except that much of it I spent on my knees on a hard wooden kneeler. I think that was the design of that thing

3 min

Elusive Humility

I was having such a great time with friends at a book convention. Each day was spent strolling the miles of aisles looking at new book releases, meeting other authors and publishing house folks, and looking at other bookstore products. Evenings were spent gadding about to fun restaurants. After dinner one night we decided to splurge calorie-wise and go to a chocolate restaurant. Yes, there were endless chocolate desserts and drinks. I decided on a double whammy: chocolate che

2 min

Simple Faith

My dad was brilliant and kind. He once said, “There should just be one law: Be nice.” Doesn’t that make sense? If we made all our decisions based on the consideration for how they affected the people around us, what a better world this would be. When put to the test by legalists, Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God “with all your heart and with all your soul and without all your mind.” Then he added that the second greatest commandment was to lov

2 min

Crumbs and Conversation: Where Healing Starts

Jesus included everyone in the conversation. He spoke with a Samaritan woman–who wasn’t part of the Jewish faith in-crowd, being half-Jew and half-Gentile. He spoke with a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years–also considered unclean by the religious leaders of the time. He spoke with a Canaanite woman–who would have been part of a group of people who served other gods. Reading the passage about the Canaanite woman today in Matthew 15, I had to pause and reflect: Do I

2 min

That Kind of God

Scripture says that God will reign over the earth. When I think about figurehead kings and queens around the world, I wonder how others view that scripture. My God is not a figurehead. He does not just hold a title with no more authority than today’s royalty that cuts ribbons and waves to a crowd affectively. My God is not the sum total of someone’s fashionable cross piece of jewelry. He created the stones and jewels and wood in that necklace. My God is not something that is

2 min

Coping with Compassion Fatigue

As a board member of The Sierra Schools Foundation, I recently helped coordinate efforts to bring social-emotional training to our small school district’s teachers. One term struck me: compassion fatigue. As teachers have doubled up duties to teach both in an in-person setting and in a distance learning model, they have also encountered countless cases of students and parents and peers who are in emotional distress, while these same teachers also try to manage their own famil

3 min

How can we Know God's Will: Conclusion

How can we figure out God’s calling on our lives? Earlier this week I wrote about the three times God laid a call on my life. Quickly they were these: 1. Writing (1986) 2. Teaching (1989) 3. Prayerwalking (1998) I experienced something different for each of those calls: – Actual words I understood inaudibly as I had taken time to quiet my thoughts and to listen for God’s direction to me. – A dramatic dream (nightmare, really) – A scene that played out in front of me while I w

2 min

How do I Know God has a Calling for Me? Part 3

The last two days I have shared two of the three callings I know that God has laid on me, as well as how they have played out in my life. The first was in 1986 when God called me to a ministry of writing. The second was in 1989 when God called me to the profession of teaching. The third occurred in the fall of 1998. We had just sent our first and second children off to college that September. It felt like a season of new beginnings, except that my health was failing–at my own

5 min

How do I Know God has a Calling for Me? Part 2

Yesterday I shared the first of three calls I know God put on my life. The first was this: “I want you to write for me” in 1986. Three years later God gave me a second calling . . . through the odd circumstance of a dream . . . or rather, a nightmare. Lest you think I’m weird, I just want to throw out there that Jesus’s earthly father, Joseph, was also directed to make dramatic changes in his and Mary’s lives because of dreams . . . THREE times, if I remember correctly. The f

2 min

How do I Know God has a Calling for me? Part 1

What could a calling look like in your life? I know God has opened a calling for me at least three times. The first was to writing. The spring of 1986 I was attending a women’s retreat at Sierra Pines camp south of Lake Tahoe when the speaker said, “This afternoon I want you to go find a rock, sit on it, and wait until God speaks to you.” While I found that a bit weird and almost presumptuous to put that much pressure on God . . . or ME . . . I did go find a rock and sit on i

2 min

Stopping the World's Spin

he greatest torture I could inflict on our gregarious daughter was to banish her to her room. She thrived on the company of others, so making her withdraw from others was the hardest discipline we could inflict when she disobeyed. The Lord God had to allow Israel to be taken captive into a foreign land. The people were going through motions with God. They would ask for God’s counsel, but then disregard any word they found objectionable. Just as a good parent will discipline t

2 min

Paying Attention to Warning Signs

Warnings. Words of advice. Gut feelings. Cautionary tales. Do we pay attention? Do I listen to others’ counsel and pay attention to their experiences? As an English teacher I heard students’ arguments against reading fiction: “But it’s not real, Mrs. McHenry. Why should I have to read it?” Here’s my thought: we can either read about others’ experiences and learn from them or we can experience them ourselves. Frankly, I’d rather do the reading. We can learn from Jeremiah’s sto

2 min

Finding Hope in a Sea of Blackness

We drove to church yesterday, with a black wall to our right half of the way to Reno. Wildfires licked up just about every spot of green from our place in the Sierra Valley last week almost all the way to the Nevada border. There were miracles of places and human and animal lives saved. Someone even posted a photo of a baby calf sitting in an unburned patch surrounded by burnt pasture. But so much black. While I know in my heart that grasses and even wildflowers will push the

2 min

Seeing Past your Own Limitations

What kinds of limitations have you put on yourself? “I’m a woman–that’s a man’s job.” “I didn’t get a college education so . . . “ “My family background is a mess. It is so dysfunctional.” “I’m not strong enough or in good enough physical shape.” “That task isn’t something that syncs with my personality type.” “I’m just not smart enough.” “I’m not attractive.” Well, we’re in good company. Listen to Jeremiah’s conversation with God: “Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not kn

2 min

Finding Perfect Peace

I often paint an idyllic picture of my little town with photos that I post on my personal Facebook page. Quaint houses and cute churches. A pretty rose garden. Stunning Sierra Valley photos. But there is some ugliness too. Folks who don’t give a hoot about their yards–with weeds a mile high and junk lying all over. Abandoned buildings crumpling. There is verbal ugliness too. Arguments. Cuss words not just for an occasional emphasis but as the substantive portion of the conver

2 min

Weathering the Season

I don’t know another time when I’ve felt I’ve lived just about every line of this famous piece of poetry written by King Solomon from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (ESV): For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to

3 min

Finding the Truth About Myself

I’ve been near-sighted since the sixth grade. That was not a good year. My school had a fire, so I had to walk even farther to another school that was next to the railroad tracks. My desk faced the window, and I would count railroad cars to keep myself awake. (It is not true that naps in school stop after kindergarten.) In fourth grade I remember being put in a special class to learn “new math,” which was actually algebra. In fifth grade poetry began to make sense. But sixth

2 min

Dear Graduate

Dear graduate, “Good young person, don’t forget everything people have taught you; take their words to heart. They’ll help you live a long, long time, a long life lived full and well. Don’t lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. Earn a reputation for living well in God’s eyes and the eyes of others. Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in ever

2 min

Moving Past Seasons of Pain

Suffering and pain define seasons of our lives, don’t they? I still find myself thinking of events as “pre-trial” and “post-trial.” Some of you may not know that my husband Craig was wrongfully convicted of six felony counts of animal cruelty in May 2005. Hmmm . . . I hadn’t thought of it until now–but that’s been fifteen years this week. And just because I don’t want to leave you hanging there, we appealed the case with the California Court of Appeals, and the conviction was