From The Sheep Pen

Today at the food bank, we gave out a lot of food to a lot of families. People were already lined up in front of the building and waiting at 3:00 even though we don’t open until 4:00. Some individuals come early to get a number because they want to be first in line and first to come in the door. At times there are disagreements as to “who’s on first.” The arguments seem foolish, but they indicate to me how important the weekly food is to the families. This is their world.

Some people come early because they don’t have any place else to go and have nothing to do on Wednesdays. Some come for the company so they can chit chat with others. I have no idea about their conversations, but almost everyone knows everyone else. It is a small town and the food bank community is a social group unto itself.

I also come an hour early and greet those waiting in their cars. I answer someone’s inevitable question, “Are you open?” “When are you giving out the numbers?” Not, not yet.   Soon.

Elk Creek is in charge for May. Lynn and Lewis  have everything well organized . Volunteers   fill the shelves and put away donations.   Fresh produce, packages of bread, vegetables,  bottles of juice and water line the long table in the middle of the room. There is some fruit and always a box of bananas from the grocery store. The atmosphere before we open is calm and filled with friendly chatter.

We gather to pray before we call in the first group of clients. We bless those who are waiting and those who will be serving. We thank God for His amazing abundance once again and ask Him to guide us for the next two hours. I personally pray for more compassion and a sense of humor because I need lots of both in this ministry.

The clients come in and the volunteers work with them. I overhear small bits of conversations. “Hello. I’m Lewis. What’s your name?” Mothers ask for diapers. Food flies out the door as it does every week. Tonight there are only four new clients, but so far this month there have been a dozen more. A young man tells me he’s moved here from Ontario to get away from gangs and drugs. He seems anxious to work and says he’s pretty skilled with his hands. He has six month old twins but so far no job prospects. Then there’s the young girl, heartbreakingly frail   with a baby in a carriage. She can’t be more than 17 and has walked over two miles to get food. A client offers to drive her back home.

On my way home I wondered at this work we’re called to. I know the work is not just about food. Tonight I saw that  the Holy Spirit was very present in the work.

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

Elk Creek Church volunteers were most faithful to help and were filled with the joy of serving. Instead of chaos there was a sense of peace and well being both inside and outside the building. Those waiting a long time to be served exhibited great patience and self control with one another – and we with them. Was it not kindness and gentleness for the woman to take the young girl back home so she wouldn’t have to walk? Above all, is it not God’s vast, inexhaustible love for us which moves our hearts to love the poor. The proof lies in the Spirit’s   living fruit in those  who were present. From that, surely today I received so much more than I gave.

EAG

This morning my two sweet grand daughters woke me up, trying not to spill the hot cup of coffee which they’d carefully brought to me. “Happy Mother’s Day, Oma,” they giggled. “You don’t have to get up yet, but we brought you this.” I got up happy because they were up.  I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

It’s Mother’s Day, that special holiday where we honor our mothers.  Perhaps today Moms were served a special breakfast in bed or at the table or taken out for brunch or allowed to sleep in for a precious hour longer. Because “It’s what Mom wants, “ prodigals even went to church willingly on this Sunday.   Pastors blessed them.   Mothers smiled and prayed.

Of course, there is the commercial side to Mother’s Day. It is the second biggest consumer spending holiday, Christmas being Number One,  and it’s estimated that between 18 to 19 ½ billion dollars is spent. Yes, that is billions. And yes, that’s a lot of flowers, brunches,   dinners and Hallmark moments. Sentimentality works so well in our consumer driven culture.

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. Exodus 20:12

It isn’t sentimentality that makes me remember my mother today. It is God’s commandment to honor our mother and our father, even after they are no longer on this earth. I was taught this as a child and have never forgotten. Why? Because my  parents  honored their parents in fact and and always in memory of them.

My mother was not a sentimental person. She lived to be 88, had a good, long life. Her legacy to me is a full one. Now seven years after her passing, all the memories are precious even the difficult ones. She was a woman of deep faith in God who gave her the strength to endure horrific circumstances. She gave me life more than birth. But that’s another story.

I will remember my mother with flowers. In front of me on the table is a vase filled with lilies of the valley, fat green leaves and long stems holding tiny, white bell- shaped flowers. I tell the children that if they’re very quiet and listen carefully, they might hear the bells resound, like a sea shell held up to the ear. They’re still young enough to be filled with wonder. I also tell them that their Great Oma Elisabeth loved Maiglogchen ,  lilies of the valley, because they reminded her of Germany.

My mother loved flowers of every kind, had a front garden filled with flowers from spring through fall. Strangers and friends usually stopped to visit and ask her gardening secrets. New York rain and humidity, good black soil helped, but my mother had the creative gift for growing good and beautiful things and for welcoming people into her life.

The Maiglogchen in the vase grew in  my daughter’s Utah garden.  My mother’s legacy is being passed on  from me to my children and to theirs. This week I will dig up some pips to take home and transplant. Next year when they come up beneath my deck  they will   remind me  of my mother and  honor her. I believe that all prayers in the garden go straight to God’s heart!

EAG

“I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread.”  Psalm 132:15

Last week was the second “Idaho Gives” Day here in McCall hosted at the Manchester Ice Center. It is a day which allows people to make financial donations to favorite   non profits for a 24 hour period. All donations are made on line, there are cash prize awards based on the number of donors garnered and much of the success depends on familiarity with social media to get the word out. For the last year, since the last giving day, a group has been meeting monthly to get ready for May 1. One of the side benefits of “Idaho Gives” is that local organizations are working together and we’re getting to know one another, not as competitors but as collaborators.

It seems to be working pretty well. State wide, “Idaho Gives” received more than $7,700.00, almost twice the total of 2013. Locally, there was increased visibility and interest as  more people visited the tables at the ice rink . The ice center donated free ice skating for a couple of hours to the public. And of course, the Human Slingshot Event drew a crowd.  It was a busy, active and fun, (although brrr cold) afternoon.

So how did the food pantry do? To paraphrase a dear woman, “We were blessed.” We received enough as my friend Lewis said today, “to buy meat for a month or so.” It is so good to have a friend remind me about what is important. It’s too easy to focus on how much money other groups received and even to become discouraged about where the culture places its priorities. In my case, discouragement can become a snare for grumbling and negativity.

Lewis spoke wisely. We can provide meat for families, even without tapping into this donation. There was a time not too long ago when that wasn’t possible but in recent years, the more the needs grow, the more we can meet those needs. We   always have enough to be generous, we never run out of food and we are blessed beyond comprehension. Recently after months of not having bread for families, we received so much bread from different sources, my prayer became “OK, Father, I think we now have enough bread for us and every other food bank in Idaho. But thank You!”

Why is that? Why these weekly miracles of the loaves and fishes?

It is so simple. My dependency, and that of HH&RC, is not on a one day giving event. Our dependency,    24-7 all year long, is on God. He is the most generous, most magnanimous, most charitable Donor imaginable. He withholds nothing that is good for all things that are good come from Him. I don’t have to go on-line or get credit card information for a donation. I don’t have to “Like” a thousand friends on Facebook. My Face to Face isn’t on the Internet. All that’s needed is a humble, personal request.

The Lord’s answer sometimes is so immediate, it’s almost scarey. I never have to compete for what’s “out there” because God’s provisions are within reach.  Faith reaches out to take hold of it. Another friend today spoke again about the Wood Bank’s unending supply of wood from last year’s logs.  “It’s just not possible that in May there is still wood to deliver. I looked in the barn and it was empty, but then the whole garage was full of wood. I can help this  destitute woman again. “ He shook his head and his eyes filled with tears. He knows first hand the power of inexplicable, divine abundance.

The lesson I learned again last week is that the world’s way of doing things is effective for some things. There is a place for “Idaho Gives” and there are benefits which  come out of local cooperative efforts here Valley County.

But if we want the miracles, those blessings which defy explanation, let us  work, pray, unite, love as one in the Spirit first – and then stand back and watch the river overflow the banks.

EAG

This day began with so many promises and blessings. Dawn broke, light came, the sun rose higher, the clouds moved. With daylight came the blessing of  being alive and enjoying life in one of the prettiest places on earth. There was the promise of going to church, worshiping our God, hearing the Word and letting its power change my heart. Jesus promised to be with us where two or more are gathered and so, just as He promised, He was present among us, both speaking to us and listening to our prayers.

Today was the gift of being with old friends and seeing new faces; it was hoping that those missing would come home soon. There was communion both during the service and afterward when we gathered as disciples, practiced the Gospel and enjoyed the table laden with good food.

There were a hundred blessings in the last twelve hours. I don’t know what they all were and I don’t have to. Our God is overly generous and I find it is good to say, “Thank you, Father for every hidden gift” .

Now twelve hours later, I reflect backward to the morning. Were those morning promises fulfilled? Was hope realized? Did joy come unexpectedly? Did light enter the dark niches? Did I live as well as I could as close to God as I wanted?

The answer is both yes and no. Expectations are not promises. Like a blustery wind coming from nowhere, not everything went well. I got in the way of myself, stumbled and fumbled , had both insights and blind spots. God gentled the wildness and fired up the deadness. It wasn’t a perfect day, but I can honestly say, “It was good. ”

I learned a song many years ago at a camp as we sat around the campfire.   I now sing it to my grandchildren at bedtime.

“Day is done, gone the sun from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky./All is well, safely rest. God is nigh.”

The day is done. The fire of the sun is gone but  God is nigh and has been near all day. We can rest safely because He also promises to be near all through this night. The amazing miracle? God willing, tomorrow I get to live in  another day of promises and blessings.

EAG (Friede)

In the beginning, in the time of creation when there was only darkness and chaos, God’s Spirit hovered over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” He had not yet made humans, but the Creator already had a plan. Man needed a sun which would bring light and warmth. He created the green planet to sustain us and to delight with its variety. God gave animals, birds, fish to feed the body and warm the heart. He breathed into man’s nostrils and gave him the gift of life. Finally, “God saw everything that He had made and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

“Thus, the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished.And on the seventh day god ended the work which He had done and He rested on the seventh day from all His work He had done.” Genesis 1:31, 2:1-2.

Early morning time is such a blessing. Now that I am sleeping well again, I get up early enough to enjoy the sunrise. First of course, some nice hot coffee and then slowly I enter the intimate, detailed, delightful world God has. When I write, my words become words of joy, thanksgiving, delight of morning praise. As the natural sensory world reveals itself,   God’s Spirit calls to mine. This, too is prayer.

I watch the sun breaking up clouds, sending a new day filled with light and warmth. The sun’s brilliance intensifies through the glass windows. It is blindingly hot and white one moment and the next, it darts behind clouds. This morning is a play of light and shadows.

The air is cool and clean. I fill my lungs deeply to clean out the stale air of an indoor night. Tall ponderosas grow in dense stands in the gullies and up hills, the aspens leaf out with green –lace. The green of trees, shrubs, grasses, leaves, hillsides seems infinitely varied. Only the Creator could have such a palette in His Hands. Two hummingbirds share a morning breakfast while the chipmunk clings to the sunflower feeder swinging from the post, stealing seeds before the finches come. It is a day to be in awe of God’s wondrous gifts. It is a day to rest from the work we do and relish the outpouring from  His Hands.

O Lord God, You who created the steep mountains and the tiniest of birds, are glorious in the earth and far above it. Praise to the Father who blesses us with life, day by day. Praise to the Son, Word of God and true Light of the World who is more beautiful than the sun at dawn. Praise to the Spirit breathing newness into our spirits all through the day. I will declare that the Lord is God and He is good. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and everything that is in it. Bless His Holy Name today.

Friede Gabbert

This evening I watch the snow coming down. It’s a spring snow, wet and heavy, more rain really than anything. The flurry of flakes drifts first one way and then another. Sometimes it stops altogether but then starts again,  drifting  lazily across the window. April snow is adolescent, not quite sure of itself or the wind direction to take.

I should be tired of this cold weather and longish winter, but I am not. It is after all spring in the mountains and weather wise, anything is possible here.  I’ve been here long enough to remember when there was a snowstorm on July 4^th and  short lived summers which lasted about six weeks, max. There were many years when my children brought friends to our summer cabin on the lake and it rained and rained and rained for days on end. Nothing is quite like a rainy week in a small cabin filled with teen age boys wrestling on the only couch.

Like most others who love to garden, I can’t wait to get out into the gardens and for warmer weather. Gardening here is a challenge, for sure, but the rewards are all the sweeter. When the daffodils open up their golden crowns in March, it is truly a gift. Pointing to the lilies of the field Jesus said that “not even Solomon in all his splendor is arrayed like one of these.” He was teaching that the  Father takes care of all His children’s needs, including what we wear. But, I like to think that Jesus, there at the Beginning, was the Word spoken for daffodils and lilies.

When the ground softens into pliable earth not even erratic snow storms can dismay a gardening heart. Spring earth is like clay to me. I know then that the migrating finches will come and that the hummingbirds are already making their incredible treks from South America.

As the April snow falls onto my gardens, winter and spring come together. Cold and ice also bring moisture to slender shoots and to the ground. It is a time when the seasons are not quite so distinct, when weather blends together the vestiges of winter and the rebirthing of the new.

It’s interesting that Easter comes during this time. Last Sunday Pastor bought the Word that for the believer, the Resurrection of Jesus should not be a one day only holiday. Easter is not Memorial Day. Easter is ongoing. Christ Jesus died, He rose from the grave and ascended to God the Father. His Holy Spirit is   given to us every day for a purpose. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, Christians can claim the same dunamis power that rose Him from the dead. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. All that’s needed is to ask.

Too often we tend to live in unpredictable April, neither in one season nor in the next. We’re not ready to make something of the clay given to us because we’re still holding on to some erratic old season or waiting passively for what the spiritual weather brings around.

It’s really a pretty simple math question: Do we want Jesus at Easter as a fraction, for 1/365^th of the year?  Or will we claim the full 100% –  the Resurrection for  365/365 ?

Friede Gabbert

The day   after Jesus was crucified and buried in the tomb must have been another terrible day for his disciples. The Bible says nothing about them on that day, but surely they were in complete shock and traumatized by Jesus’ horrific execution. They were afraid for their own lives and devastated by the hope that they had placed in Jesus to bring about an earthly kingdom. Their Teacher, Friend and Master was gone and they were terrified.

Some  information about Saturday, the Sabbath, is given is in Matthew 27: 62-66. The chief priests and Pharisees demanded that Pilate set a guard before Jesus tomb so that His disciples would not steal the body and claim Jesus had risen.

“So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting a guard.”

Sealing the tomb is telling. Even after Jesus’ death, the religious leaders still hated Him. Having rejected Him as Messiah, having conspired for His barbaric death and witnessing the crucifixion, they still wanted assurance there would be no possibility of His resurrection. Self righteousness and justification for Jesus’ execution were, I believe, no more than the deepest fear that Jesus was truly Messiah and would rise on the third day, as He said He would.

Why seal the tomb, if they were not worried? A seal was a legal sign attesting to what the seal was set to. In this case, it meant that the body of Jesus present in the tomb was truly dead. If the seal were broken, then someone had disturbed the tomb.

Perhaps the request for a seal was less apparent. If Jesus did rise from the dead – something they vehemently denied – but just in case….just in the slightest case He did?   How would He get out of the tomb? They had heard of Lazarus walking out of his tomb when Jesus called him forth. Would Jesus not also have to come from the inside of the tomb outward? And thus, break the seal? Thereafter, they could still claim that someone had broken into the tomb and stolen the Lord’s body. They could still deny Christ had risen from the dead.Tthey were still thinking like Pharisees.

Jesus was not held by the tomb, nor the seal on it, nor the guards set outside. Resurrected, He simply came forth. Overcoming death, nothing on earth restrained Christ.

The disciples did not know what had taken place and refused to believe the women who reported Jesus had risen. John says that they were in hiding from the Jews. The doors were shut. They had sealed themselves into a tomb of fear. But then…

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them,”Peace be with you.” John 20: 19.

The risen Lord  appeared  among them, in a sealed room, offering them His Peace. Then He  spoke and sent them out again, from their hiding place:

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:21.

Just as it did with the disciples, the power which rose Jesus from the dead  has the power to break through all  seals  which try to keep us entombed. Moving into the hours before Easter morning, I pray God removes the seals of self righteousness and blindness from our minds and hearts. May His resurrection power destroy all fears which seal us into dark tombs, “and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Friede Gabbert

Isaiah 53: “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e]; by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g] and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h] because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

This African American spiritual was made popular  by Johnny Cash .
It is a song of both deep sorrow and great hope – the death and burial of Jesus  in the knowledge that three days later, He overcame death and the grave forever.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?

Big Jim’s feet told the story. It was hard to miss them. They hung over the bottom of the bed by at least six inches. Jim was a tall man and had probably never found a bed to fit him, less the standardized hospital beds in a care center.

I had never seen anyone’s feet like his. Swollen and huge, the skin blotchy and tightly stretched over bones, they didn’t seem to belong to the wasted man lying in bed, chest caved in, breathing laboriously. His feet were scarred and marred from years of neglect. The toe nails were yellowed and thickened, grown into the skin like the talons of a an old bird. The soles were cracked and so calloused, they looked like old leather. From the grime between his toes, it was clear he hadn’t washed his feet in a long time. I was pretty revolted.

Jim never wore anything other than broken down sandals, barefoot no matter what the weather. He obviously never paid much hygiene to his feet and it seemed that now at the end of his life, no one else cared to either. I’d met Jim over the years at the food bank. He never took very much food, “I don’t need much,” he’d say, lighting up another cigarette while he waited outside. He loved sweets and I’d give him cookies when they were available. He was a talker, usually showing up to chat at length at the busiest time – or when I was alone, seeking a little  solitude.   He offered much advice gleaned from a life lived the hard way. Mostly he talked about God and being clean and sober and passing on the message. He did not tolerate fools who thought they knew how to run their own lives without God’s help.

The smoking finally got him. I lost track of Jim for a year or two until the news came that he had esophogial cancer. When he started coming to church again, the cancer was already advanced. He kept coming to church as long as he could and never gave up either hope or faith.

Shortly before he died, I visited him at the care center. He still joked about the cookies and thanked me for helping. I was the grateful one for he had taught me much about kindness.

Looking at Jim’s beat up feet, I thought   of Jesus walking and walking and walking for three years among us, His feet touching the land, raising up dust along the roads, becoming tired and broken and calloused. They too bore the scars of His journeys. No one cared for the Lord’s feet. No one offered to washed them when he entered their homes, as was the Jewish custom, except the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears.

Today, Maundy Thursday,  the Christian world reflects somberly on Jesus and his disciples in the Upper room. We remember how before the Passover meal took, Jesus took off His outer garment to show His disciples what it meant to be a servant:

“After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.” John 13:5.

Jesus, though the Master, humbled Himself to wash his disciples grimy and  unattended  feet.

There wasn’t any water or soothing lotion in Jim’s room to pour on those pitiful feet. He probably wouldn’t have wanted the attention. There is always a rationale for what we don’t want to do. Truthfully, I didn’t want to even get close to Jim’s feet , let alone touch them.

It wasn’t so bad. The skin was soft, feverishly warm  and dry, the toes scratchy and sharp. Suddenly, his feet weren’t dirty at all to me.  What was prayer and what was touch, I still don’t know. He looked at me surprised and then sighed softly. I left after a while and cried in my car. There are many ways to wash another person’s feet. Through Christ’s love  all things are possible. In Jesus’ kingdom, the  untouchable becomes   touchable,  the filthy parts are cleansed  and the “least of these brethren”  becomes the greatest.

Friede Gabbert

Only a little is known about how Jesus spent the last Wednesday of His earthly life. Mark 14:1 states that “After two days it was the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread”, placing it as the 14^th of Nissan in the Jewish calendar. In Matthew 26:2 Jesus says “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

Both accounts thus place this particular day as our Wednesday.

What is known is that Jesus retired to Bethany after he had gone to the temple on Tuesday and taught there for the last times. He spent the day and evening with his friends and disciples, having supper at the house of Simon the Leper and most likely with Lazarus, Martha and Mary of Bethany. A woman came to Jesus and poured precious oil on His Head as He sat at table.

The second thing known is that Judas went to the Pharisees right after Jesus was anointed with the alabaster jar of oil by the woman.  Matthew 26:14, “Then, one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you? ‘ ” Judas was with Jesus in Bethany and immediately left to plot against Him.

The first instance is unabashed worship by the woman who may have been Mary. The second is ultimate desertion and betrayal by a chosen disciple. And the Lord Jesus was at each center . He called both “friend” and chose to be with both in the last hours of His life.

I think of the “What if…?” question. What if you knew you had only a few months to live? What would you do? How would you spend the time? What if it were two weeks? Two days?

If I knew I had months or weeks left to live, I would want to be with family and many friends. If it were only 48 hours, only my beloved family. This is how Jesus spent Silent Wednesday in Bethany. He secluded Himself away from the multitude to be with people He loved the most.

Jesus also spent the day in Bethany with grumbling disciples who were indignant at the woman’s extravagant gesture. Jesus spent the time with Judas who was plotting against Him and already counting out thirty pieces of silver in his heart. His love embraced friend and enemy alike.

In my last hours, could I let an enemy into the room. Could I welcome him, knowing I will be   betrayed again immediately? Or do I hear only silver coins jingling in another’s pocket and slam shut the door?

On this Wednesday before Easter, I ponder the last Wednesday of my brief life solely  in the Light of Jesus’.

Friede Gabbert