Letting Go

One of my favorite TV ads from years ago is the Nestea Iced Tea Plunge commercial. In case you are one of the few people on the planet who has not seen it, it takes place in the backyard of Everybody's Neighbor on a hot day. The way I remember it is like this: a cool glass of iced tea is offered to the protagonist, who, upon taking a sip, looks likes she's just been transported to another world. She is so refreshed and euphoric that she falls backwards into a swimming pool directly behind her. She has taken 'The Plunge'.

I can't be sure if that's exactly how the ad went because when I tried to check it on the Internet, I discovered that all the videos have been removed. It is sometimes referred to now as the "Infamous Nestea Ad." I can only assume that someone tried it in his own backyard, got hurt, and sued the company.

Letting go is risky and sometimes dangerous. One piece of advice my husband gave our kids when they were looking for new jobs involved the 'law of the jungle": not letting go of one vine until you have hold of another. A trapeze artist, on the other hand, lets go at the last possible moment, hurls herself through the air, and grabs her partner's hands midair, seemingly to defy gravity, as well as all sense of reason, wisdom, and sanity. She has to trust those hands are going to be there when she lets go.

This is precisely what God asks us to do-- to let go and trust Him completely. It's hard to fathom why or how the original followers of Jesus were able to do this. Jesus walked by, called to them, one by one, and asked each one to follow Him. They dropped what they were doing, left everything behind--jobs, family, homes-- and followed Him . . . 'at once'. It was incredibly risky and possibly dangerous, like falling backwards into the unknown. It defied all reason, wisdom, and sanity. Why on earth did they 'take the plunge'?

I don't know. I can only tell you why I did. I didn't have hold of a vine, so I couldn't grab the next one. I was adrift and alone and so desperate that I began to cling to the only Vine that made sense--the God who sailed across time and space, called me by name, grabbed my hands and held onto me.

I can't say my life has been like a 30- second commercial or a 30- minute sitcom that neatly resolves all problems by the time the director yells "Cut!" But I will say that I've never regretted a single day since the day I took 'The Plunge' and set off following Him.

It's a jungle out there. But I'm clinging to my Vine and He's clinging to me. And even if I can't hang on anymore, I know one thing:

He's not letting go.

"As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said. . . At once they left their nets and followed him." Matthew 4:18-20

The Light

You gotta love Florida in the winter. After our sweltering, humid summers that stretch well into October and November, the balmy winter nights are welcome relief. But the first year our family celebrated Christmas here in the tropics, it just didn't seem like Christmas. 


Braving blizzards, wearing snowboots and mufflers, sipping steaming hot chocolate after ice skating, seeing my breath on a crisp-cold morning, scraping ice off my windshield-- these are only memories now for this transplanted Chicagoan. And yet they were the backdrop for every Christmas of my life until I moved away from home. 


But no matter what region of the country we've lived in, or what the weather channel said the temperature was outside, some Christmas traditions have been delightfully similar everywhere.  One of my favorites is the way the world lights up at night during December. As the nights get shorter and colder, one by one, houses and stores and neighborhoods light their entryways and yards and doorways. I especially love the way the stately royal palms are dramatically outlined against the inky-black night skies here in Florida.


I understand why the tradition of the lights came about--as the darkness creeps in earlier and earlier in December, it gets a little depressing. Cold AND dark in the North is hard to take. The twinkling lights, on the other hand, are cheery and uplifting, and warm you to the soul. I miss the lights as they are extinguished, one by one, in January.


At Christmas, the lights remind me that Light has come into the world and has pierced the darkness. It guides Wise Men toward it. It is uplifting and welcome relief in a cold, dark world. But most important and glorious of all, this living, loving Light will never be extinguished.


And that warms my soul, right down to my flip-flops.


"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."   John 1:5


 "You, LORD, are my lamp; the LORD turns my darkness into light."           2 Samuel 22:29

The Cactus

Florida is known for its lush, green, tropical landscapes, trees and flowers of every sort: royal palms, blazing hibiscus, sublime orchids, Honeybell oranges, and water lilies, to name a few. But a cactus in Florida just seems out of place. Cacti conjure up parched deserts and arid wilderness, not luxuriant tropical vegetation. But this one down the street seems to be thriving.

I don't know much about cacti, except they hurt like the dickens if you get too close and get yourself pricked. I kept my distance from this one. Cacti are succulents and retain water for long periods of time, thereby ensuring their survival in desolate landscapes. Their thorns are actually leaves, but by the time the thorns reach maturity, all the cells in them are dead, even when the spine is still growing. The only living cells in a thorn is at its base.

Now that has me intrigued. At maturity, you can actually look alive, but remain dead inside. Sometimes my spiritual life feels like that.

I ran head-first into the living God when I was in my early 20's. At that time, I did not know one verse in the Bible--I could not tell you if Noah or David or Goliath lived before or after the time of Christ. About all I knew about Jesus was that He was born in a manger and that three Wise Men went to visit Him....But I think I sort of got Jesus mixed up with Santa Claus.

Since that time, I have studied the Bible, listened to countless sermons, memorized Scripture, taught Sunday School and women's Bible studies, and even written a children's book on the attributes of God. I have gone on retreats, journaled, prayed, and now blogged about my faith journey...all in the pursuit of deepening my faith with that living God who heard my cry years ago.

I must be a mature faith-walker by now. . .right? But sometimes I feel dead inside. I may look the same on the outside, but I'm going through the motions on the inside. And I'm not thriving at all.

A fresh encounter with God is not something you can conjure up any time you want one. At least that's not the way it is for me. The most tangible times I've had with God are when I'm caught by surprise, or when I'm not trying so hard to do the right thing, or when I am devastated by my own shortcomings.... God has met me where I'm at in the quiet moments when the TV is turned off or just after I close my eyes at night and try to turn off the noise in my head. That's when I hear God speaking to me, soul-to-soul.

It's Christmas, and for me, it's easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and miss the real message--that Christ came into our world to speak to us, soul-to-soul. This Christmas, I don't want to keep my distance from the Christ-child. I want to crawl up close to the manger and hear Him speak. Just to me. I want Him to breathe new life into my soul and make my heart beat..for Him. I want Him to enter the desolate landscape of my life and make me bloom and thrive and grow.

The most wonderful news is that He delights in doing all that, for anyone who seeks Him, just like those Wise Men...and I bet that means Santa Claus, too.

"The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature." Luke 8:13-15

The Poinsettia

Poinsettias just shout "Christmas!" to me. They are everywhere at Christmas, including this one in my neighborhood. I can't resist buying at least one or two during the season, but the day after Christmas I haul them out to the trash, as they lose their luster and are not so showy the rest of the year. But at Christmas, they shine.

How they came to be a part of our Christmas traditions is steeped in legend and history. There are many versions to the legend, which by most sources, start with two poor Mexican children who were on their way to the town's nativity play. They had nothing to bring to the Christ child, also a tradition (wait, do we have this backward?? Gifts for Jesus...?... I may have to come back to that thought), so they grabbed some weeds by the side of the road and placed them by His manger. At some point, the 'weeds' miraculously became a fiery red color, dramatically highlighting the focal point, baby Jesus.

You can believe that or not, but history does record the fact that Joel Poinsett, a physician, botanist, and statesman from South Carolina, first introduced them to the United States in 1825. Under President James Monroe, he became the first U.S. Minister to Mexico, where the plants are indigenous. In Mexico the plant is called: "La Flor de Noche Buena", "The Flower of Christmas Eve." And the rest is history...

The idea that even the hills and the plants worship God in their own way is a thought I had not pondered very deeply. When I want to worship God, I put on my best clothes, drive to a church, and sing and pray with the rest of the congregants. In the plant world, I suppose you gussy yourself up with blossoms and aromas and fiery red flowers. A hill or a meadow would cover itself in wildflowers and shimmer with dew at dawn. And rocks?? I have no idea. Maybe they speak a language we don't understand, but God does.

God longs for us to worship Him this season in any way we want to communicate with Him. And the funny thing is, He delights in gifts we bring to the altar--for others. A clink of a coin in a Salvation Army bucket. A toy for a child whose parent is in prison. A homemade cake for the elderly neighbor in a nursing home. A smile. A hug. Even a kiss under the mistletoe.

He speaks the language of love. And that can be translated into any language, is understood in every culture, and never loses its luster.

"The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing." Psalm 65:12-13

The Gift

Once, years ago, when we were living in California, our home was burglarized. It was bad enough to come home to the shock of knowing someone had been inside your house and that the electronics and jewelry were gone, but the worst was-- all the presents under the Christmas tree were stolen!! My children were traumatized for months afterwards. Truth be told, one or two of them still haven't quite gotten over it.

This photo is of a gift I received from one of my students last year. It was the one-and-only gift I received from a student that semester, but it was enough. Even one small gesture of appreciation lifted my spirits and made me feel like I had perhaps made a difference in at least one person's life.

I've received many gifts in my life so far, hundreds probably: diamond bracelets, gold earrings, new cars (ok, back off--my dad was a car dealer), Caribbean vacations, not to mention cold, hard cash. But nothing says "I love you" like a wet, sloppy kiss from a chubby-cheeked toddler or a fistful of half-crushed daisies picked from your own garden offered by a smiling mud-encased 10-year-old boy.

Those burglars who made off with our Christmas gifts ended up with some gifts they could not use and had no meaning at all to them--the small handprints of a preschooler pressed carefully into clay, crayoned artwork of stick-legged mommies and daddies, and boxes of See's chocolates meant for my kids' classroom teachers.

I love Christmas, who doesn't? The season brings out the best--but also the worst, and sometimes the pressure of gift-giving gets to me. In the midst of our well-meaning, frenzied, often over-the-top buying sprees, there is a reason why we started it all in the first place, and here it is:

God Himself gave the greatest gift of all time to the human race: His one-and-only, Jesus Christ. "Christ-mas". It makes sense.

This week I'm in the middle of the fray and will put the finishing touches on the gifts I'm giving to my most treasured 'possessions': my precious family and dear friends. But in the back of my mind I will try to remember that the most meaningful gifts are ones that have no earthly price tag and cannot be stolen away.

And that spells I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U.

"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" 2 Corinthians 9:15

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." Matthew 6:19-20

The Statue

This guy seriously creeps me out. He is only one of a large column of statues that are propping up a hotel on Brickell Avenue in downtown Miami. They form an army of silent sentinels that stare out at passersby. I have passed them often by car, but I usually look the other way. This time, however, I was on foot, and curiosity got the better of me. I took a closer look.

Standing right under their noses, I touched their metal skins and peered into their unseeing eyes, confirming to myself that they were inanimate and harmless. But as I walked among the rows of mute sculptures, I couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness. The whole atmosphere was dark and gloomy-- creepy. Just beyond the darkened driveway, the Florida sun was shining, beckoning me to come out from the gloom and do what people are meant to do in Miami--Drink in the sunshine! Frolic on the beaches!

The artist who created these may not have had the term 'idols' in mind when he sculpted them, but that is what they reminded me of. The fact that people all over the world worship idols, unseeing and inanimate, saddens me. Can something a human being has created with his own hands see into a human heart, know her thoughts, feel her pain, heal her wounds--love her, understand her, comfort her?

One day when I was in my 20's, God stopped me, literally, in my tracks. He revealed to me in one abrupt moment that He was real and alive--a Being who knew my thoughts and saw my heart. If I had really understood then exactly who I was dealing with, it might have been a terrifying moment, but it wasn't. I felt oddly comforted and loved. Later on, He revealed some of His many names, (Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Redeemer, Counselor); His nature, (compassionate, forgiving); His heart, (loving, eternal). Nothing about Him is creepy or gloomy. Mysterious, yes. Creepy, no.

God longs for us to walk out from the gloom and bask in the warmth of His presence. But He is not willing to share us with idols that we have created with our own hands or hearts, whatever shape they may take. He is Light and Hope and Life--the Creator of all things in this world and in the world we cannot see. What created thing can possibly trump that?

I thank God that He reached down that night and pulled me out of the gloom and walked me into the light--where I am still basking in His love and frolicking in His tenderness.

So long, creepy statues. I won't be visiting you again.

"This is what the LORD says—
Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last;
apart from me there is no God." Isaiah 44:6

The Promise

When I was a kid I had a 'blood sister'. Not the one I lived with, but one who became my 'sister' after a special ceremony. You know the drill: You get a needle from your mom's sewing kit, prick each other's fingers, press them together, and promise to be BFFs (Best Friends Forever). Forever.

That promise has remained unbroken to this day. She is still my best friend--when we pick up the phone to chat, we don't have to start over. We just start wherever we left off two days ago or two months ago. She knows all the 'dirt', good and bad. And she still loves me. Imagine that. But it makes sense--she's family. She has my blood running through her veins.

There are many promises that we make that don't last that long. Even as the words are tumbling out of our mouths, we have no intention of keeping them... "This won't hurt."-- "I'll be right back."-- "I'll do it later.", or my favorite: "We promise to feed the new puppy, walk him, clean up after him..." (haha, they got me with that one).

But blood promises? When I first began my faithwalk with God, the blood thing really baffled me. The Israelites were instructed by God to offer animal sacrifices in the wilderness. The wine at the Last Supper, according to Jesus, represented His blood that was shed on the cross, a human/divine sacrifice.

From a human perspective, losing blood means losing life. But with God, paradoxes are the norm. Surrender means freedom. The last become first. The meek shall inherit. And sacrificing blood means gaining life.

When we allow God to 'prick our finger' and mingle His blood with ours, we become family. His blood runs through our veins and gives us new life. He becomes our BFF-- "a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24). Or sister, I would add. He knows all the 'dirt' and loves me anyway. Just imagine.

Even years down the road, there is still so much I don't understand about God, but this much I do know: When God makes a promise, He seals it with His blood and keeps it forever.

"Do not be afraid or terrified . . . for the LORD your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

And that's a promise I'm going to claim as my own.