Rain

When Isaac and I were married almost 17 years ago the song we chose for our wedding was

 When The Rain Comes by Third Day. 

Click to listen here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC6hmKXclP0

Looking back it was a kind of strange choice for a wedding.

Here we were at the very start of our lives together. 

What most people would call the happiest day of your life and we are singing about the inevitable storm,

pain and chaos that would be in our lives. But for us (especially me) who has always struggled to

not worry about the future it was a perfect choice.

The words promise that the rain will be there but so will Love. 

Today on what feels like the 100,000 day of quarantine it is a rainy day.

After several weeks of sunny beautiful weather it was a bit of a shock to the system.

My smallest and I had gone to run a quick errand which included printing him pictures of Pokemon.

Now you need to know that his love of Pokemon runs deep, like an Oregonian loves coffee or fish

needs water. As we exited the car he carefully tucks his pictures under his arm.

He takes a runner's stance, left knee bent on the balls of his feet, arms primed to pump.

He leans forward and sprints forward through the rain onto the porch.

The Spirit prompts my memory and my wonderings.

Does running through the rain protect your valuables?

Will it keep safe the things we hold most dear?

As I walked through the rain to my porch the words rumble around in my head:

 “ When the rain comes it seems that everyone has

gone away

When the night falls you wonder if you shouldn't

find someplace

To run and hide

Escape the pain

But hiding's such lonely thing to do

When the rain comes you blame it on the things that

you have done”

Maybe you feel like you are trying, like my little, to sprint through this rain storm of Covid-19,

trying to protect all the things you hold dear. Maybe you are hiding.

Maybe you are looking for someone or something to blame. 

Are you counting the days until the rain stops? No matter what this storm and your response looks

like, the next part of the song encompasses a promise that we can all embrace. 

The words of the song echo Jesus' promise to us in John 16:33 And everything I’ve taught you is so

that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me.

For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous,

for I have conquered the world!” 

“So Rest awhile

It'll be alright

No one loves you like I do

When the rain comes

I will hold you!”

Today, remember God is with you. He loves you and is holding you.

Healing at Bethesda

Read John 5:1-18

Jesus just asked him straight out, “Do you want to be healed?” At first that seems like a ridiculous question. Maybe the man thought so too. After all, he had been disabled for 38 years. Of course he wants to be healed, doesn’t he?

I love this story. There is a lot of things going on here if you’re paying attention, and the story is unique in a lot of ways. I think we may be seeing Jesus, the real Jesus—the Jesus that surfaced when the crowd wasn’t pressing in on him. I know Jesus wasn’t disingenuous; he wasn’t a different person in public than he was when he was by himself or with just his friends. Jesus was Jesus all the time.

Most of the time, though, we see him surrounded by crowds demanding his time and attention, or by people trying to trip him up or question him or arrest him. Once in awhile, though, we’re given a glimpse of Jesus when he is alone with one another person, like the woman at the well, and we see this Jesus who is engaging, freely gives his time to the other person, and is attentive to the other person’s story. I think this was probably the Jesus that Jesus wanted to be all the time, but the crowds and the persistence of the religious leaders made this a rare pleasure for him.

I see this as one of those times because Jesus, the healer, is here at the pool of Bethesda, surrounded by a bunch of ill and disabled people who are waiting for the water in the pool to be stirred so they can be the first one in and be healed, yet none of them are clamoring around him asking to be healed. I think Jesus is somehow incognito—I don’t think anyone recognizes him.

It could be that Jesus was there without his disciples and that’s partially why nobody recognized him. The disciples aren’t mentioned once in the story, in fact, they aren’t mentioned again until the next chapter when he returns to Galilee. And, later in this story we’re told Jesus disappears into the crowd. It is kind of hard to melt into a crowd when you’ve got a dozen guys following you everywhere you go.

Jesus being incognito also makes sense because of the way the man responds to him. I think if the man knew who Jesus was, and Jesus asked if he wanted to be healed, he would have answered differently. If Bill Gates walked up to you on the street, and you knew it was Bill Gates, and he asked, “do you want a million dollars?” your response might be different than if just a regular old person asked you in conversation if you wanted a million dollars. To Bill Gates you might say, “you bet, and I’ll take it in twenties.” To the other person you might just say, “where would I get a million bucks?”

I think option 2, from the man’s point of view, is what is happening here. Some stranger strikes up a conversation with this guy and was listening to his story. John tells us, “When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” Jesus “learned” what was going on with the man. As the man relates his story, he tells Jesus he’s been disabled for 38 years. And Jesus, the stranger, asks, “do you want to be healed?”

I know I said earlier that the man might have answered differently if he had known who Jesus was and that Jesus could heal him. But I find it interesting here that the man never really answers Jesus’ question at all. Maybe, had he known who Jesus was, he might have felt some pressure to answer yes. After all, it would likely have been taken as an offer that demanded a yes or no answer. But in a casual conversation there was no such pressure. Under those circumstances the man chose to skirt the question.

Perhaps the man was taken aback because the question does seem silly. Maybe under his breath the man said, “really?” But, instead of answering yes or no, the man starts relating to Jesus all the reasons why he hasn’t been healed and why none of them were his fault. That sounds a lot like a person who is more concerned for being blamed for where he is than a person who wants to change where he is.

I’m not meaning to imply the man didn’t want to be healed, maybe he just thought the situation was hopeless, but I do think there is a good chance that the man didn’t know if he wanted to be healed.

Before you write that theory off as preposterous, hear me out.

A couple of things we know about human beings. One, is that we are creatures of habit—we each have a comfort zone and most of us cling to it pretty tightly. This man had been an invalid for 38 years. He knew how to do that. He had a routine--probably family members or friends would take him to the pool every day before they started their workday. He may have had a regular gang that hung out in the same spot by the pool, and they solved the world’s problems together each day. This had been his life for 38 years and he may have felt sorry for himself, but it was his comfort zone.

The second thing to consider about humans is that psychologists tell us many people are afraid of success. There are many talented and aspiring musicians, athletes, writers, artists, actors, architects, cooks, doctors, engineers (you name the area of human endeavor)…who dream but never really work toward their goals. Some never really pursue their dreams because they are afraid to fail. But there are also many who never pursue their dreams because they are afraid to succeed.

Why would a person fear success?

One reason might be expectations. If you’ve never accomplished anything no one expects much of you. Success attracts responsibility and responsibility inhibits freedom.

In 2010, when I was interim pastor at Holladay Park Church of God in Portland, there was a homeless man and woman who slept on one of the church’s porches. They were very considerate of the church’s routine. They would set up after the office closed in the evening and were gone by the time it opened in the morning. They never left a mess, and on those occasions when I would come in during off times, they were very friendly and conversant.

Debi and I invited them to our Thanksgiving dinner. Paul (I’m not sure why I remember his name after 10 years) a man who appeared to be in his 50s, didn’t really fit the stereotype most people would have of a person who lived on the street. His hair was kept neatly groomed and he sported a well-trimmed Van Dyke—I know it was a Van Dyke and not a goatee because when I complimented him on his goatee he explained the difference to me. He also was very intelligent, articulate and a college graduate.

When I found that out, I asked him if he had a plan to get himself off the streets. He looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would I want to do that?” he asked, “Why would I want a house payment and a car payment? Why would I want people to expect me to show up at a particular place at a particular time to do a particular thing every day? No one expects anything of me right now. I’m free. I can go where I want and do what I want. Why would I want to change that?”

Expectations can be intimidating. Perhaps the disabled man had grown accustomed to no one having expectations of him after 38 years. Also, after 38 years of laying by the pool, he would have no saleable skills. What if he couldn’t get a job? What if he still had to live off his family? It was bad enough to be an invalid, but to be perfectly healthy and still be dependent on others—that had to be immeasurably worse.

Another reason many fear success is that they feel they don’t deserve it. It is kind of like having that million dollars show up in your bank account without reason or warning. You see it there, but you know it’s a mistake so you don’t spend it in case the goof is discovered and you have to pay it back.

When I was growing up I was constantly told by my mother that I took after her. I loved reading and stories and music. That was all very true. But I was also told that my brothers had taken after my Dad and had oil in their veins instead of blood. They were handy, and mechanical, and could make things and fix things, and I just wasn’t born with those skills.

When I joined the Navy I was given the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery). The test results showed that I had the aptitude to do any job in the Navy including the most technical field they had—the nuclear power program. The recruiters put on a full court press to convince me to choose that program and I did.

I was trained as an electrician in a Nuclear plant. I graduated pretty high in my Electrical schools and in Nuclear Power School. I did well enough in my prototype training that they picked me up as a staff instructor without any sea experience. A couple years later, when I finally got to sea on the submarine, I became the division leading petty officer and qualified as Engineering Watch Supervisor, the highest watch an enlisted man could stand in the engineering plant.

When I got out of the Navy, I told people I had left because I had been at sea for my son’s first step and first word, and I didn’t want to miss anything like that again. That was very true, but even if I hadn’t missed any of those things I would have left. Deep inside me there was this gnawing sense that I really wasn’t any good at those kinds of things. I was convinced that all the success I had over those 8 years was a fluke and that I was a fake. Somehow, I had fooled the system and eventually something would happen that would uncover my ineptitude. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Looking back, I realize that the Navy is not cavalier about who they allow to operate complex and sensitive million-dollar equipment or stand watches that might jeopardize the lives of an entire submarine crew. But back then none of those facts cluttered my reasoning. I just believed I didn’t deserve to be where I was.

In Jesus’ day, physical impairment was usually viewed as some form of God’s judgement for sins committed. If the man was disabled from birth the belief would have been that the man’s parents committed some form of sin which caused him to be born disabled. Chances are this man wasn’t born disabled. In a few chapters Jesus will heal a blind man and John is careful to tell us that the man was born blind. John doesn’t include that detail here, instead he merely tells us that the man had been paralyzed for 38 years. That leads me to believe this man was born perfectly mobile and experienced some form of accident at a young age that disabled him. If that was the case, whatever sin was believed to have caused the accident would have been the man’s, not his parent’s.

What if the man believed he deserved the condition he was in? What if the man thought that he couldn’t walk, and had been unable, for 38 years, to get in the water and be healed because God had passed some kind of judgement on him? What if he didn’t tell Jesus he wanted to be healed because he was afraid if Jesus healed him something worse might happen to him because he didn’t deserve to be whole?

In fact, Jesus finds the man later on and does tell him to quit sinning or something worse might happen. I don’t think Jesus did this to reinforce his fear that God was mad at him and was going to find him take away his healing. Perhaps Jesus was sensing his fear and was addressing it. I think he was freeing the man from his past and letting him know he had the power to choose the condition of his life from here forward.

Fear has a significant effect on what we do and don’t do, what we choose and don’t choose, what we believe about ourselves and what we don’t believe. Looking at this story through the eyes of the disabled man leads me to wonder what people might be accepting in their lives because they feel they deserve it? How many people stay in abusive situations, or choose directions in their lives that God never intended for them, or live with an image of an angry and vengeful God because they think that is all they deserve? I wonder how many people don’t develop their gifts and talents, or don’t pursue their passions because they don’t believe they deserve that kind of joy, fulfillment and success?

I think Jesus sat next to this man at Bethesda and asked him about his life. When he heard the man’s story his heart broke for the man. It was obvious that Jesus didn’t heal the man because of his great faith, or piety. The story doesn’t paint the picture of a man who had either of those. John shows us that Jesus turned the tables. The man wasn’t disabled because he had done something to deserve being disabled; neither was he healed because he had done something to deserve healing. Jesus healed the man because he wanted to heal the man.

I think when Jesus spoke to the man at the end of the story, he was completing the healing he had begun when he fixed the man’s legs. I believe Jesus longed for the man to be free, not only of his physical limitations, but maybe even more from all the fears and misconceptions that held him more captive than his physical limitations did. I think Jesus wants that for all of us. I think Jesus’ heart breaks for all of us when he sees the things that hold us captive.

I think Jesus wants to see us all take up our beds and walk.

Stories and Sustenance

Debi’s Story

Hey there! I would like to share a couple of stories about how God has changed my life and been so evident by His perfect timing. There are so, so many more stories of His mercy, grace, forgiveness, discipline, and love that we definitely do not have the time for me to share all of them.  I’m just so very grateful and amazed, overwhelmed and humbled by Him and His love for me – for each of us – for His perfect timing. Please listen to this song, “Thy Will’” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAmh3yvmzXs which has come to mean so much to me these past few years.

There was a young teenage girl that went to our church in Mariposa.  Her name was Susan. When she graduated from high school she was drawn to an orphanage in Hong Kong where she served God and the children for several years.  Whenever she came home she would speak about China and the work God was doing there and ask people to join her for a short missions trip.  I would always say “NO!” My reasons were because I am an American female, and Americans were being kidnapped and killed all over the world.  I had promised myself I would stay safely within her borders and be content with sponsoring missionaries.  She kept asking for several years always receiving an adamant “NO!” from me.

Susan left the orphanage and began working with Youth With A Mission – YWAM. Our oldest son, Jeremy, went on several short term mission trips with Susan and YWAM during this time. When they would come home they would share their stories of how God had used them and blessed them.  But I never felt the calling to go anywhere outside of the US especially to a communist country like China.

Well, in Spring of 2007, Susan was once again home, sharing her stories and asking if anyone wanted to come on a month long trip to Hong Kong and China in the Fall with YWAM. I again was going to say “No.” When she approached me, I was preparing myself to say “No.” Instead, I felt a washing flow over me and overwhelm me.  Tears began gushing out of my eyes. I began shaking. I felt a freedom like I had never felt before, a release from my fears, and I said, “YES! Yes, I will go!  Yes, yes, yes!” Susan and I were both crying, the people around us were hugging us, it was amazing!

The Sunday after that, I announced to the church that I was going to China.  I would need to raise $2,500 for support in order to go.  We took a special offering that morning and God’s people had given me over $3,000, just like that!! I was able to give our son Jeremy, who was going with me, a part of the money from the church with their blessing.  God really threw open the doors!

Hong Kong and China were amazing!  I can’t tell you all the stores about what happened, but I can say my life was changed in so many ways.  We were not able to share about God and we even had to be careful talking to each other while outside in case special “ears” were listening.  But we felt His presence everywhere! I felt safe.

One of the stories I will share with you happened in a small village we stayed in for 1 ½ weeks.  Our “roles” were to be tourists and to form relationship with several businesses so the missionaries living there would then have an in-road to beginning a relationship with them.

One of the things we were taught before getting to the village was that the Chinese people were not huggers.  We were to keep distance from them so as not to offend them. So, keeping that in mind, Susan and I went to the same bakery every morning, and the same bubble tea place in the afternoon.  The workers began to have our orders ready for us when they saw us coming. The last day we were going to be in the village, we tried to pantomime that we were flying home. At first, they did not understand. But as they began to understand what we were saying, they came out from behind the counter and, with tears in their eyes, hugged us!  I mean really hugged us! We were all crying.  It was so hard to leave that special place.  I will always remember them.

The other story I would like to share is about a young woman named Peng Yangui, but her English name is Jessica. She was a senior in high school in Nanning, a large city in southern China. Our group went to a class she was in so we could speak English with them. We enjoyed talking with them. That evening we all met at an outdoor coffee house and talked more, played games, and laughed a lot. Jessica and I exchanged email addresses, even though I would not be able to email her first.  We said our goodbyes that night and went our separate ways.

It was several months later, after I got home from China, that I received an email from Jessica.  We began writing back and forth regularly.  She was coming to the US to go to college in a year. It was also during that time that we moved to Portland, which is another crazy story of God’s timing for another day.  Jessica chose the University of Oregon in Eugene so she could be close to us.  We were all so excited!!

Jessica was to begin attending U of O in January of 2009, so she came to us in Portland the December before. It just so happened that it was during the worst blizzard Portland had in decades! She was stuck in her plane on the tarmac for 3 hours not understanding what was happening.  When she finally got off the plane, I ran to her, both of us crying and hugging.  I think Bruce even got a bit teary-eyed.

And that was the beginning of our relationship with our Chinese daughter. We spent many Thanksgivings, Christmas’, and Spring Breaks together. She calls us her American Parents.

Years later, Jessica graduated from college, had her 22^nd birthday and got married to Shifeng all in one week. Bruce officiated their marriage ceremony! We’ve met her parents and spent several visits with them when they’ve come to the US. When Shifeng became a US citizen, he stayed with us and we accompanied him to his ceremony.

They now have 2 small boys, Shuchen and Shudi, who call us Mimi and Papa. We’ve spent some vacations with them, too. Plus, if the Corona Virus hadn’t raised its ugly head, they would be here now and you could’ve met them. But they will come out some other time.

All of this happened by the grace of God and in His perfect timing by setting me free from my fear of going outside of my protective borders. I would never have met Jessica. We would never have been a part of her story. We wouldn’t have 2 adorable little grandsons.  All because of God’s grace and His perfect timing.

I’ve shared a bit about my cancer and God’s timing, but let me tell you a bit more.

In December of 2013, my Dad, who lived in Fresno, CA, was very ill so we went to visit at Christmas time. I went to visit him in January, 2014, and again in February. My annual physical was supposed to be in January, but I had cancelled it. When I went down to visit in March, it was to say goodbye to him because he was in a coma until he died on March 16. Hard times.

Bruce had stopped working for the Church of God District Offices by this time, so we no longer had health insurance.  When he began teaching at Warner Pacific College in the Fall we once again had health insurance beginning in August. I was working for Parkrose Hardware in Portland and had been for a while as a salesperson for lawn & garden. We needed some help in the purchasing department so I applied for the job.  I began working in purchasing in August, working M-F, 8-5, instead of irregular floor hours as a salesperson.

On Friday, Sept. 12, 2014, I called to make an appointment for my physical and was told there were no openings until October. But Wait!! A cancellation just opened up for the very next Monday, Sept. 15 so I took it.

During my physical my doctor, a beautiful Christian woman, found the lump in my right breast.  She immediately set up a mammogram and an ultra sound for the next day, Tuesday.  I was numb.

At the same time, our daughter-in-law, Jody (Chione’s mom), had developed a lump on her neck that we were concerned with.  Her grandmother, mother, and uncle had all died from the same stomach cancer.  She was scheduled to have a biopsy Tuesday, the same day I had my mammogram and ultra sound. I hadn’t told anyone, but a few weeks earlier when we found out about Jody’s lump, I prayed that God would take her cancer and give it to me because Chione needed her mom more than she needed me.

We were told that I had a lump that was still Stage 1, so we did a biopsy on Wednesday.

Thursday, we found out Jody did not have cancer! I praised God for that, but as I was praising Him, I realized that if she didn’t have cancer, I did.

Friday we got the phone call that confirmed what I believed already.  Ductal Carcinoma of the right breast.  So began the appointments:  meeting my oncologist, meeting my surgeon, making plans for surgery. We were told that since it was still Stage 1 that I would not need chemotherapy.  Probably  just radiation.

The surgery was on October 7^th. The lump ended being bigger than first believed and there were also some cells in my sentinel lymph node, thus taking it into Stage 2.  But we were still hopeful about the treatments.

My tumor was sent to be analyzed to find out how aggressive it would be in my body. We found out it was extremely aggressive and I would have to go through 2 rounds of chemo and 5 weeks of radiation – not what we wanted to hear, but we knew WHO was in control and WHO was guiding those involved with my treatments.

My first round of chemo began the last Friday of October.  I lost my hair the first week – bummer.  But I actually liked not having hair:  no shaving legs or underarms, lots of hats, no shampoo. Chione liked to pat my bald head.  She was 3 at the time.  November was rough as I was hospitalized for dehydration. But the first round ended the last part of December.

My bosses at Parkrose Hardware were amazing while I went through all of this.  They were very gracious about my schedule for I was allowed to work four 9 hour days M-Th, and Friday mornings for 4 hours to keep up my full time schedule because of chemo on Friday afternoons. God’s timing once again because if I hadn’t gotten the job in purchasing, it’s very doubtful that I could have worked full time during my treatments as a salesperson on the floor.

My 2^nd round of chemo began in January and ended the first of April. It left me with numb spots on the bottom of my feet and my left shin and calf.  But I felt alright during that round.

I began radiation in April and ended on May 4, 2014.  EVERY DAY that I went in for radiation, KLOVE played Keri Jobe’s song “I Am Not Alone,” either on my way there or going to work after treatments. Once again God’s timing with KLOVE and His music was perfect. And I am very excited to let you all know that my 5 year anniversary of being cancer free is this coming May 4^th!! To God be the glory!!

God’s timing was so perfect through all of this.  If Dad hadn’t been sick, I would’ve had my checkup in January when the tumor hadn’t started yet.  By the next January, it might have been too late.

I would not have been able to work full time if I hadn’t gotten the new job in purchasing.

Bruce’s insurance with WPC began in August and ended the 31^st of May.

The timing between the discovery of the tumor and the surgery to remove it and my sentinel node in my right arm was September 15 through October 7^th, less than a month.

You called us here to 2^nd St. just 6 months after my treatments ended.

If we hadn’t moved to PDX in 2008, I probably would not have survived because of the lack of cancer specialists in our area.

If I hadn’t gone to China in 2007, we would not have Jessica and her family in our lives today.

So many things would be so different for our family if not for God’s perfect timing.  I’ve learned how to rest in Him and trust Him more.  I’ve learned that He created me to be a warrior.  I’ve learned that I need Him more and more each day.  I’ve learned that He is all I need.  He will not leave me or forsake me.  He is love. And His timing is perfect. Please take a moment and reflect on His perfect timing in your lives as you listen to Kari Jobe sing “I Am Not Alone.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2oel0_Xa54 Thanks!