Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Sparrow Lessons



            It’s been a rough summer. When my school closed, I lost my ministry teaching teens and the income that paid for my family’s health insurance. Soon after that, my close friend and coworker of fifteen years died suddenly and unexpectedly. I would rather not be experiencing redirection and sorrow.

            I argue with myself about the weight of these losses:

            They are nothing compared to what many in the world are going through.

            But they still hurt.

            They don’t measure up to Ebola, beheadings, genocide, or Ferguson.

            But I’m still heartbroken.

            I should be glad to have many other friends and now a new job.

            But I feel like a refugee there, a displaced person.

            Refugee? More like a wimp.

            I can go on, being adept at arguing with myself and others, but then I remember the words of Jesus to his twelve followers two thousand years ago.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29 – 31, NIV)

            My Father cares about the huge things like war and human rights and hunger and disease. But he also cares about the piddling things like one person’s losses and resulting anxiety and grief.

            My Father’s care is not limited by a tight budget and decreasing tax revenues. It’s not limited by not-enough-hours-in-the-day. God’s love, care, power, grace, and mercy are unlimited.

            That’s a good lesson for this half-penny sparrow.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

A Silly Song

Dear Reader,

Now it's time for silly songs without Bob and Larry.

Sow, sow, sow the seed gently on the ground,
Patiently, prayerfully, faithfully for the King.
Harvest will abound.

Maybe it's not so silly if it helps me remember what God wants me to do.

XOXO Roberta

P.S. I hope it gets stuck in your head.

P.P.S. Can I play this on the ukelele?

Saturday, August 16, 2014

"The greatest adventure is what lies ahead..."



            I’m beginning a new adventure. 

            I should know better, having been warned decades ago by Bilbo Baggins that adventures are “nasty disturbing uncomfortable things” that “make you late for dinner.” Still, I find God’s call even more compelling than Gandalf’s, which Bilbo couldn’t ignore.

            So I will pack up all my teaching tricks (after I figure which boxes I packed them in less than a month ago and unpack them) and take them and me to Sunbury Christian Academy, where I will be a smaller fish in a bigger pond. 

            I’m pleased to announce I can now find SCA on Route 11, although I’m not confident I can locate my classroom after entering the building. Hopefully one of the kind bigger fishes will point a fin in the right direction. 

            What will the first day of school be like? I suspect it may be like the first chapel of my fifth year of school at WCA, in August 2003.

            My first ever homeroom, my kids from freshmen through senior year, had graduated in May. I had a new homeroom to get to know. I thought I was okay with that until we had our first high school chapel. 

            The music started, and as I stood up to sing, I looked at the worship team, and it was all wrong. D.J. wasn’t playing piano. Cammie and Sherrill weren’t singing together at a microphone. Other musicians from the Class of ’03 were conspicuously absent. 

            I couldn’t sing. I bawled.

            So it’s entirely possible that I may tear up when I survey my new class of juniors and the Maccabees (my WCA homeroom boys) are missing. I may sniffle when the seniors come in lacking the familiar faces and voices of McKayla, Tessa, Caitlyn, and Tyler.

            But I know I’ll be okay:  In 2003 I learned my love could expand to include new students while praying for the older ones embarking on their next adventures.