My babies never had an ultrasound while God developed them several decades ago. But when I saw the first sonic images of my first grandbean, I jumped up and down. “That’s a human be’in’!” I recall shouting, tears of joy streaming down my cheeks.

In 2009, Abby Johnson stood beside a pregnant mother, watching the images of that woman’s child on an ultrasound screen. What happened next devastated her.

Abby’s passion to help women had led her, a fresh-faced college student, to join Planned Parenthood as a staff member at one of their many clinics. Her work caught the attention of her superiors. Six years later she became the clinic’s director.

Abby didn’t perform abortions. She counseled and cared for the teenagers and women who came to the clinic looking for assistance with their pregnancies. One short-staffed day, a fellow staff member asked her to assist a visiting doctor performing an ultrasound-guided abortion—not the clinic’s customary procedure. Using the ultrasound added five minutes to each ten-minute abortion, meaning fewer abortions—and less revenue for the clinic.

“I could not have imagined how the next ten minutes would shake the foundation of my values and change the course of my life,” she writes in her book, “Unplanned, The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-opening Journey Across the Life Line.”

As she held the ultrasound scope, she noted the image of a perfectly formed 13 week fetus. “Fetuses feel no pain,” she told herself, quoting her training. She watched in horror as the little body twisted away from the suction instrument, then disappeared down the tube.

She writes, “I could hear in my memory one of the many arguments I’d had with my husband, Doug, about abortion. ‘When you were pregnant with Grace, it wasn’t a fetus; it was a baby,’ Doug had said. And now it hit me like a lightning bolt: He was right! What was in this woman’s womb just a moment ago was alive. It wasn’t just tissue, just cells. That was a human baby—fighting for life!”

Realizing the truth about her work devastated Abby. A few hours later, she sat in the pro-life office next door, weeping. Today she’s an ardent defender of life, and a passionate spokesperson for the pro-life movement.

Mrs. Johnson’s history has shaped her unique attitude in the pro-life/pro-choice debate. “We all long for a story that shows that “our” side is right and good, and “their” side is wrong and bad, don’t we? But I testify that there is good and right and wrong on both sides of the fence. And even more shocking—we have far more in common with the “other” side than we might imagine.”

In the heightened emotion of this crucial re-emerging issue, that’s something the Giver of Life would have us all remember: Choose truth, and follow peace.

 This Sunday is Mother’s Day. To my precious mother, mother-in-law, and daughter, thank you for choosing life.

__~__~__~__Easy Over__~__~__~__

Unable to completely love her own children, God used a baby to help this woman find healing:

The “Painter of Light,” as the world knew him, died last month. Artist and author Thomas Kinkade, well known as a devout Christian, was among the world’s highest earning and most popular living artists.

After his death, I sat with one of his books on my lap, and one of my grandbeans at my side. Reading aloud. Every so often she stroked a page. “That’s SO beautiful, isn’t it Nana?”

Indeed. Page after page showed heavenly views. Homes and cottages with lighted windows; abundant, colourful gardens, tidy stone pathways leading to quiet forests, and skies resplendent with God’s glory.

The artist chose to illuminate his paintings with words like these from poet Eliza Cook: “Sweet is the hour that brings us home, where all will spring to meet us…”

Kinkade was good at making people long for home. Repeated references to his own home and family cheered and encouraged admirers of his work: Keep your hearts at home. Enjoy the good God has given you there, at your side. Those were Kinkade’s messages.

But the artist’s simple pastoral canvases, of late, hid something disturbing. The last several years of the fifty-four year old painter’s life included great personal darkness. As critics in the art world accused him of schamltz, sentimental trip-trap, and the equivalent of artistic harlotry, reports of his bizarre behavior increased. Gallery owners accused him of defrauding people in the name of God. He battled with alcoholism. He replaced his wife with another woman, and became estranged from his family.

Pedestals are perilous places. Pride and popularity taper up to the jagged pinnacle of greed and wealth, and not many can keep their balance there. Apparently Mr. Kinkade lost his. I grieve that, but I understand it.

And this: When my grandchild and I finished reading that book on the warmth and blessings of home, every page filled with something that fingered her tender heart, she closed the book, stood up and said, Nana, I want to go home. So I walked her home. Her daddy greeted her with a hug and welcomed her there.

Good work, Thomas, I thought. No matter what you were.

Like Mr. Kinkade, I strive to serve God and others well with the gifts he has given. But also like him, I am a worm. An earth-crawler with dirt on my face, the hope of heaven in my spirit, and a prayer in my heart: “Lord, may the seeds I plant grow a longing in people’s souls for all things right and good.”

But God forbid that thinking I stand, I fall. For one day he will judge me and Mr. Kinkade and you, too—not on what has grown from our lives, but on whether he finds love and acceptance of his own Son, Jesus Christ, nestled in our hearts.

As did my grandbean, I pray to arrive safely home to be met by my Father’s embrace.

In retrospect, I ought to have paid more attention when I first noticed the slight hiss in the basement. But it barely registered—until I went downstairs for something else, hours later.

Who knew that a pin-sized hole in copper piping can cause a flood in three hours?

The pilot of the jet leaving the Newark, New Jersey airport a few months ago should have paid better attention too. Seconds after takeoff he noticed a warning on his control panel. He didn’t think it crucial and chose to carry on to Warsaw. Hundreds of passengers sat comfortable in their seats, ignorant that beneath them the hydraulic fluid responsible for lowering the plane’s landing gear had drained from its tank. Miraculously, the pilot managed a successful—if flamboyant—belly landing, with no casualties.

The problem? A $30 fuse had popped.

Children should grow up knowing this—little things are seldom little things.

A few years ago as I sat working in my home office, our power went off. It stayed off for hours. The next day we heard why. A curious squirrel made a casual inquiry into one of our city’s electrical transformers. The creature, ignoring much barbed wire and many signs clearly warning that electricity kills, had gnawed into a bundle of wires in a shiny green box. The resulting explosion left me without computer, bakers without ovens, construction workers without power tools—and frustrated many others. No doubt the squirrel never lived to tell the tale.

Little things matter. Oh, did I already mention that?

One of the largest man-made US disasters occurred on July 17, 1981, in Kansas City, Missouri. During a tea dance at the splendid Hyatt Regency Hotel observers watched from a magnificent series of aerial walkways suspended from the ceiling. Suddenly, the platforms beneath them collapsed.

 An inquiry into the disaster revealed the problem: During construction a design change, made for the sake of convenience, left the weight of the entire structure supported by a single nut—albeit a large one. But the genuine problem wasn’t the nut. Had someone stopped to make a small calculation (that could have easily been scribbled on the back of an envelope) they would have realized the design flaw immediately. Sadly, deplorable architectural carelessness cost 114 people their lives.

A tiny mistake. A deadly consequence.

Someone first noted in the year 1390 that: “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.” Times haven’t changed much, have they?

But little things work the other way too: In the spiritual realm, a prayer spoken, a corner un-cut, a hunch followed, a Holy Spirit whisper heeded—and someone’s destiny is forever changed.

Pay attention to the small stuff. It’s rarely small stuff.

Since their births, our four grandbeans have absorbed the habits of their nearest and dearest adults. I should mention here that their daddy is a preacher. That their grandfather is the Preacher. And that Mama and Nana preach too, in and out of the pulpit, in words written, spoken and sung.

Surrounded by such adults, it’s not surprising that the Beans would receive advanced classes in early spirituality. Some days I’m not sure that’s optimal.

Our third grandbean joined the Preacher and me for lunch the other day. At the tender age of four, Dinah is experimenting with her fledgling faith—and finding it useful.

“This is TOO spicy,” she said, of her tamale square.

 “Ah,” said I. “That’s why I also made mashed potatoes.”

 She dipped the tip of her spoon into the spuds on her plate. “But I don’t WIKE smashed potatoes.” she said. Then she put the spoon down. “Nana, I want salsa on my potato.”

 I put salsa on the potato. She played with it a moment. “Nana,” she said sadly, “Ahm NOT hungry.” She slipped off her chair and left the table, then, minutes later, bounced back. All happy. “Nana, I want a snack.”

 ”No snack. You haven’t finished your mashed potato and salsa or your tamale square. Around here, nobody gets snacks if they haven’t eaten their lunch.”

 ”I don’t WIKE it,” she said, and retreated again. Then returned, seconds later. “Nana, God is hungry.”

 I almost dropped my fork. “Pardon me?”

 ”God is hungry!”

 I gulped. “And how do you know God is hungry?”

 ”He told me.”

 ”He told you?”

 ”Uh, huh. God is in my heart and God said he’s hungry. He needs to eat.”

 ”WELL then,” says I. “No offense intended, but God can eat YOUR lunch.”

 ”Nope,” said the little con-artist, flouncing off for the third time. “God doesn’t like salsa either.”

 At an after-church dinner, on another day, Dinah sat next to her older brother, who took his turn making contrary comments about Nana’s food. Eating quietly (God liked her food that day), she listened to his complaints. After several miserable minutes, she’d heard enough. Lifting her pointer finger, she wagged it under his nose, and quoted from Philippians 2:

 “Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God…!” Sermon text finished, she added the application: “Benjamin, dat’s what YOU need to do!” On the YOU, she poked his shoulder, and resumed eating. He howled, and the surrounding adults—at least this one—nearly choked.

 “How to Use Religious Words to Manipulate Nana and Coerce Your Brother.”  Who taught her that deeply spiritual lesson?

Faith, they say, is more caught than taught. Some days I think we preachers should all just shut up and start tossing around love instead of words—especially in the presence of children.

_~_~_~_~Easy Over_~_~_~_~

Sometimes Dinah sings AND swings. I can’t resist her version of “God has a Plan for My Life” accompanied by Amanda. Smile with me.

Our family participated in three funerals this week.

A closely bundled trio of funerals bends one’s thoughts in uncomfortable directions. How stubbornly I insist—we all insist—on leaning on spiderwebs. On people and things we take for granted today, forgetting they could be mere memories tomorrow: a slide show at the front of the church. An empty chair at the table.

Cancer felled one friend, a man of strong faith; well loved by all who knew him. He left too soon and too young. “This is not the answer we prayed for,” said someone, during his funeral. “We wonder…did healing occur?”  

It’s a question Deborah Shelton can answer—now. For eight years the wife of dramatist, David Shelton, watched her husband’s slow deterioration. He had Alzheimer’s Disease, caused by a blow to the head while snowmobiling.

She and their children never stopped praying, not even when healing didn’t come.

The disease eventually removed him from the stage. Hear Deborah: “We are peaceful as to the Lord’s will and His perfect timing as to when He heals David: now or upon his entrance to heaven. For 8 years we’ve prayed that God would choose to heal David now, but it’s seeming that His will is not to, and who am I to question Him?” 

Miracles happen sometimes. Everyone knows that. Everyone hopes for that. But anyone who is a Christ-follower also knows (admit it or not) that God seems to show up in some places and not others. And it doesn’t seem fair, does it, that an innocent child dies in tortured pain at the hand of a pair of vile murderers, while a crusty old sinner, cranky and bitter, outlives all his contemporaries—then dies in his sleep.

Deep puzzles line the walk of faith. Honesty demands that we admit them to God. That, like a child finding a knife too sharp to handle, we bring them into the light and allow him to hold them for us.

David Shelton died eight days after Deborah wrote the above statement on her husband’s CaringBridge website.

The Bible is clear on this: God honors faith, but God is not faith’s puppet. He is the faith-or, not the faith-ee. His thoughts and ways are far above ours. He holds answers we cannot now comprehend. He owes us no explanation.

Just as any loving human parent, I believe our Heavenly Father aches over his children’s wounds. I believe he lovingly soothes each pain, dresses each wounds and heals every disease, soul and body. All.

But as he did for each of our friends, and as he did for David Shelton, God heals some of those wounds on the other side of heaven’s gate. And there, any remaining questions will find answers, and all joy will return.

Cling to that truth—no matter how many funerals batter you.

_~_~_~_EASY OVER_~_~_~_

In memory…David Shelton

An astounding thing happened during Jesus’ crucifixion. While dying, he issued a Divine pardon to the frightened criminal on the cross beside him.

I don’t blame that fellow for his fear. The religious leaders of his day taught that only perfect people got eternal rewards.

As a youngster, I believed the very same thing. In my memory, I tripped down to the altar of my childhood church to recite the sinner’s prayer every time I told a little lie, disobeyed my parents, mouthed a cuss word or fought with my siblings.

That trip saved me from eternal damnation at least two hundred and fifty six times. (I could be wrong. It may have been more. I collected so many tickets to heaven, I could have scalped them on E-Bay, had it been around then.) 

Two friends—one Catholic, one Baptist—believed their tickets to heaven came through dunking or sprinkling. Other friends believed in salvation by association: their parents attended church twice yearly at least—Easter and Christmas. Three times, if you threw in a wedding.

As I grew in faith and years, I learned what the Bible says: Baptism no more guarantees heaven than dunking in hot oil guarantees donut-hood. Heaven’s gate doesn’t swing open at every recitation of the sinner’s prayer. And no matter how spiritual one’s family, God processes each applicant for eternal mercy on their own merit.

(Unlike me, God has no grandbeans.)

Perfect behavior doesn’t guarantee a spot in heaven either. Jesus Christ reserved his harshest words for the local religious leaders. Though they fastidiously observed the law, they lived loveless, self-righteous, and hypocritical lives. No wonder they wanted Jesus dead: unlike them, his life proved his words true.

At the age of fifteen, one of the greatest Christians of the nineteenth century, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, read this Bible verse: “Look to me and be saved…for I am God and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:22)

One verse. He believed it, and, like that condemned thief, his belief changed his destiny.

According to scripture, heaven will hold some who have prayed a sinner’s prayer—but so will hell. Both places will also contain baptized people, and people who lived good, upright, even religious lives.

Those in hell will have one thing in common: Regardless of what they did or didn’t do, said or didn’t say, during their lifetimes—God found no genuine belief in their hearts.

Those in heaven will have one thing in common too: Regardless of what they did or didn’t do during their lives, said or didn’t say, God found transforming belief in their hearts and it was enough to open heaven’s gates.

The thief recognized what the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ still proclaims: Look to me, and be saved, for I am God, and there is none else.

He believed. I expect to meet him in heaven one day, where, by God’s grace alone, we will both reflect the Son in ways our lives on earth never permitted: perfectly. 

___~~___~~___~~___~~___~~___

The Apostles Creed

There are a few good things about not hearing, I’ve discovered since the morning I woke up deaf.

I sleep better when I can’t hear the headboard squeak. The Preacher’s favourite music—not always my taste, barely bugs me. And our parrot’s crow imitations? Mere dibbits of sound in a landscape of silence.

The first morning of my almost total deafness, I woke early. Sensing something different in the morning quiet, I got up. Walked to the window, noticed the maples swaying at the back of the property. But I heard no wind. Inside the house, not even the antique clocks ticked. (Or tocked, for that matter.)

“I’m deaf as a stone!” said I. “Can’t hear a thing.”

“You don’t have to yell,” said the newly roused Preacher. At least I think that’s what he said. His face appeared pained and his lips moved.

“But it’s like someone tied two pillows around my head with a belt!” He appeared to groan, and reached for two pillows himself. Unnerved by the silence, I laughed myself silly.

When I calmed down, I realized the problem: my ears are a wax factory. Every few years they produce enough to fill the ear canal. Then they give notice by stealing my hearing. My deafness had snuck up on me gradually. I’d ignored it, hoping it would go away.

For the next few days, when the alarm rang at five a.m. the Preacher had to shove me awake—a a job he seemed to relish. I couldn’t hear my cell phone alarm, barely six inches from my head. (If you have a Blackberry you’ll understand the extent of my hearing loss. Those alarms start out sweet and soft, but if you don’t stop them, they’ll blow up your nightstand.)

My doctor looked at me soberly. I read his lips. “You have to be really sick to come to see me. Last time you had shingles. What’s wrong?”

After he blasted my wax factory into kingdom come, I left his office a new woman. I didn’t try to start the car after the engine was already humming. I remembered to turn off the blinker. I heard birds, and my hands brushing the steering wheel. My world had changed.

But I’ve thought ever since of something my doctor said during that visit. Also a person of faith, he told me that for some time he sensed God calling him to an unusually difficult assignment. He had resisted, he said, “but I have to listen now.”

God speaks to us all, in many ways. Choosing not to listen blocks our spirit’s ears. But our Father in Heaven is rather like my Blackberry. He never gives up. He does, though, allow us to choose: remain deaf or allow the Holy Spirit to blast that God-deafness all the way to sweet surrender—so he can flow through us and change the world.

What’s your choice?

I followed the highway preacher (at far less than highway speed) for a few miles, before I passed. The car’s licence plate read REPENT.

As I pulled ahead, I craned my neck for a glimpse of the owner of the rolling pulpit. Who would do that? I wondered. Specially order that plate. What motivated the choice of that particular word? 

The driver looked pleasant. Likely a church goin’, born-again, heaven bound, Christian. Someone who had already done what every believer must—repent of their sins. Someone who aims to live and act like Jesus. And—just in case I wasn’t all the above—someone who wanted me to REPENT too. 

God bless ‘em, I did have an attitude or two to shuck: beginning with annoyance. I AM a Christ-follower. (I cringe when I say this, because the older I get, the more I know how poorly I follow.) I repent almost daily of something. I understand that the ability to sorrowfully admit our failings, our flaws, our sins to a holy God and receive the grace of forgiveness is an unspeakable gift.

But license plates like that bother me. At best, they seem a lazy way of introducing other people to my faith. At worst, an offensive—even dangerous—way.

Why so? Because any slip in traffic courtesy on the part of the driver is likely to push observers away from the Christ we purport to follow. Because the driver doesn’t have to engage people. And because he or she has no way of communicating with anyone who may actually want to talk about repentance.

John the Baptist called sinners to repentance. John had a divine appointing as a forerunner of Jesus Christ. But John didn’t drive a Volkswagen Rabbit. He walked. He preached. People responded to his singular message because his God-appointed words reached people’s hurting, broken spirits.

John allowed others to come to him—he didn’t press the gas and pass. He stuck around long enough to visit, to teach, and even to baptize people. He wasn’t afraid to be real or to express his own doubts.

Sharing the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ is the privilege and responsibility of every Christ follower. We all do that in different ways, many of them unconscious; hopefully with humility, keeping in mind that pointing fingers at people we think should repent leaves three more pointing back at me.

I’m sure the driver of that car knows all that. And I’m not saying God can’t use that license in the life of someone in whom he is already at work.

But honestly? I won’t be putting a plate like that on my car any time soon.

Second Helping…

 Here’s a South of the Border take on wearing your faith on your bumper:

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/judge-hits-the-brakes-on-christian-license-plates-cms-15214

Our daughter and son-in-law’s parsonage overflows with their family of great Canadian jumpin’ Beans. 

“Don’t move so close to your grandchildren,” a few people cautioned when God led the Preacher and me to a house around the corner from theirs two and a half years ago.”You’ll have no time for yourself.”

Around-the-corner family means adjustments, true. Sacrifices (on everyone’s part) too, and plenty of reasons to apologize and pray for grace. But loving family is very good for the soul.

When I arrived home from work last evening, all weary and word-depleted, the Preacher and Sherah Kathleen waited in the kitchen.  Sherah visits on Tuesdays, during her siblings’ swimming lessons. We cherish our rare moments alone with her. 

When I opened the door, that tiniest grandbean (newly walking) raised her arm and pointed her chubby index finger at me, all surprised. “Na….na!”

I set down my baggage, kicked off my boots, picked her up, covered her face with kisses and entered the sweetest part of the day—homecoming. Just seeing them there, these two beloveds, punctured holes in my weariness. Drained it some, and invited energy.

At supper, she ignored the chicken and threw all her corn kernels onto the floor. But she ate the pieces of baked potato, then tucked her head onto her shoulder and looked sideways at Mr. Potato man himself. Grinning.

 She can’t keep her eyes off her grandfather most of the time, our tiniest bean. When he’s around, she smiles at his back, grins at his front, and spouts fountains of giggles when his long finger tickles her under her chin. Like her siblings, she adores Gampa.

 The feeling is mutual. But as is the way with most men of his generation, during diaper changes the tykes become all Nana’s. Her Wet Wiggleness squirmed on our bed at bedtime, a telltale redness around the eyes. She fought the change, giggling, her little body twisting like quicksilver, evading my hands. Then she tried to put the nappy on herself, clapped her moccasin clad feet and squealed, her eyes wise and blue, like flax under clouds.

 Change made, pyjamas finally on, she flung herself onto the bed backwards, waited for the bounce to stop, then, grinning, sat up flopped forward, folded double. Head between her feet, she twisted sideways to watch my reaction. That common infant contortion astounds me every time.

 Oh, God, you bless us so. The thought flooded me, as I tickled the miracle in the middle of the bed. As I sang to her, stroked her satin hair.

 This season gallops. Life won’t always favour the Preacher and me with the presence of nearby children who adore us. We pray to use the opportunities we have to love. To never prove untrustworthy. To closely observe and seek out the deep meaning of these words of Jesus: ”Except you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 If God has blessed you with a season of nearby children who adore you, I pray you the same.

My daughter thought I’d love the thing she rescued from a friend’s truck headed dump-wards. She thought right. Now the old door, chartreuse on one side, white on the other; veined as a centenarian, flaking and rotten around the keyhole, stood against a wall near my own back door. 

Waiting for redemption.

We started the job, Butterfly Bean and I, with cloths, scrub brushes, and a bucket of hot water. The garage sheltered us from the frigid wind. Not warm in there, nor bright. Daylight showed through the small window on the east side, and a solitary bulb suspended overhead helped some. Every five minutes, I ran to press the round white garage door button. Once to lift. Once to stop. And once to close. That kept the wind out and another light on.

Her little hands pink under transparent rubber gloves, my first ladybean scrubbed fiercely, matching my efforts. Every so often she picked up a brush and scraped a bit of paint that wanted free. “This door sure is dirty, Nana.”

“Sure is, honey.”  Then, because I didn’t want her to get bored, I said, “But there’s something special about it, d’ya know?”

She paused, eyes bright in the gloom. “What’s special?”

“It has stories, Butterfly. Lots and lots. Every time it turned on its hinges, for all those years, it got a new one.”

She’s a story girl, that child. She sings them, plays them, immerses herself in them—like her mama.

“Tell me.” Excitement barely contained.

“Well…don’t know them exactly. But it has tales, sure as a bed has covers. And they likely started at a tiny house near here, a very long time ago, the day someone hung it in the front doorway of…”

“Who, Nana?”

“Hmmm, let’s call him Mr. Larkin….”

 Our coat cuffs sodden with dirty water, Butterfly and I scrubbed and told stories. We rolled them back and forth between us like snowballs. Until they got big. Until they felt real and solid in our minds.

We storied that door clear to clean, she and I, till her lips and fingers blued with cold, and the old stories stood still.

The old door has a new story now, one it tells from its position over our queen-sized bed, white side out…

Who, me? Used up? Ugly? Ah…but l have a story. Got time? Forgotten, I was. Headed for the pit, till someone found me, loved me, and plucked me out. Said I was worth the trouble, scrubbed away my grime and told me who I was. Washed away the dirt, but left my character and my story. Gave me a new life, a new purpose, and a new story. That’s my story…and I’m stickin’ to it.

Redeemed. It’s the story of every Christ-follower, including this columnist.