Banquet with Simon

Banquet with Simon (Luke 7:36-8:3, spark bible p. 354-357)

Narrator:  One day, Jesus was invited to dinner at Simon’s house.

Simon:   (to the kids) Can you help me welcome Jesus?

Jesus knocks

Simon:  Welcome! (Kids: welcome)  Thanks for coming, Jesus (Kids:  Thanks for coming, Jesus!)

Narrator:  Jesus was ready to eat, when he heard a woman at the door.  When she saw Jesus, she started to cry.  The woman was known to have done many wrong things.

Woman:  Booo Hooo!  Sniff!

Jesus: Please pass the grapes

Narrator: The woman bent over Jesus’ feet and cleaned them dry with her tears.  Drip, drip drip (Kids:  drip, drip, drip!)

Jesus:  Please pass the cheese.

Narrator: the woman dried the tears on his feet with her long, dark hair.  Wipe, wipe,  wipe.  Can you wipe like the woman did?  (Kids:  wipe, wipe, wipe).  The woman was kissing Jesus’ feet and rubbing them with oil.

Simon:  I didn’t invite that woman!  What is she doing?

Narrator:  Simon was angry.  Jesus cleared his throat and told a story.

Jesus:  Two people owed the bank money.  One person owed a bank 500 coins.  The other person owed the bank 50 coins.  The bank canceled payments for both people.  Who was more thankful?

Simon:  The one who owed more money, right?

Jesus:  I’m like that bank.  I forgive and forget big and little mistakes (puts hand on woman’s head)  She needs a lot of forgiveness, so she shows me great love.  You are my host, but you didn’t greet me as a special guest.  You have little mistakes for me to forgive, so you give me only a little love.

Narrator:  Jesus turned to the woman.

Jesus:  Dry your eyes, friend.  I forgive all you’ve done wrong.  You have a strong faith.

Narrator:  Simon had learned a very important lesson.   All people are important and equal to Jesus.  Jesus forgives and forgets mistakes of all sizes. 

If Jesus were coming to your house, how would you get ready for his visit?  What would you do or ask when he came to your house? 

Thoughts for Grown ups

I'll admit it--I'm just thankful this week isn't about a miraculous healing.  Sharing this story with the children is a bit more straightforward.  It's good news we can all take home--God is loving and caring.  Jesus forgives us, no matter how large or small our mistakes.  I also love the way Jesus draws attention to this and gently corrects Simon here.  It reminds me of the Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies (PBIS) at my son's school.  Here, he focuses on the beauty of the woman's actions before addressing Simon's approach and correcting.  I think it's a reminder we can all use--God loves even those we find un-loveable and it's important to look for beauty and redeeming qualities, viewing others how God might see them.

Elijah and the Widow

Kid Friendly Worship.  June 9, 2013.  Elijah and the Widow—1 Kings 17:8-24, page 140-142 in the Spark bible

Narrator (Widow):  Come in, friends!  It sure is hot here in Zarephath lately, isn’t it?  I expect that you came to hear about the stranger living with me?   God has done miracles in our house because of him.  

Several weeks ago when it was so hot and dry that almost no one was outside, I went out to gather sticks near the town gate for our dinner.  The stranger, Elijah approached me and said, “Excuse me, Ma’am?  Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?”  Of course, I was happy to do it, with it being so hot and him coming so far.  As I started to leave, though, he said “oh, and can I have a piece of bread too, please?”  I stopped and almost started to cry.  I turned around to tell him the truth—“I’ve got nothing to offer you.  I only have a little flour (hold up jar) and a little oil (hold up jar) at home.  Not enough to make even a biscuit.  I’m going home to make a fire with the sticks so that my son and I can eat this meal and then get hungrier and hungrier and die.”

He said something amazing!  He told me “Don’t be afraid. Go home and cook, But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me.   Then make something for yourself and your son from the flour and oil you have left.  God told me and wants me to tell YOU that  ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”

He ate.  We ate.  There was more left over!  We would have enough for another day.  I made food the next day. He ate.  We ate.  There was MORE!  God kept providing food for all of us! 

But then my son got sick and stopped breathing. I picked him up and carried him to Elijah. I yelled at Elijah because I was so sad.  “Why do you hate me, man of God?  Did you just come to eat my food and kill my son?”  He told me to give him my son.  I did (look sad with empty arms outstretched).  He took him to the room I let Elijah stay in and he laid him on the bed.  He started so loudly I could hear him downstairs.  He was asking God to help him start breathing again. Soon, he came back downstairs carrying my son.  He was breathing!  He was smiling!  I was amazed. I knew he was a man of God, and that when he said God was speaking to him, he was telling the truth! 

What are some ways we can be like Elijah and take care of hungry people?  How can we care for someone who is sick?

___Thoughts for the adults

Well...two weeks in a row we're talking about healing in many ways.  However, that's not the heart of the story that struck me.  God told Elijah that he should go to Zarephath and that a woman would help feed him.  God could have chosen anyone to feed Elijah.  Though drought probably made food hard to come by, he chose an especially difficult case--a widow (who, in that society, was basically seen as having no worth and no power) who was a bit cranky/immediately defensive with Elijah, and then her son demonstrates illness and DIES.  The thing that struck me here is that the miracle isn't just the food.  In fact, I'd argue the more powerful miracle here is that she puts her trust in God and does as Elijah asks.  She makes food for him first, though she barely has any even for her son and herself.  She was PLANNING to die, but in her trust and faith, God helps see her through.  This grizzled, bitter woman in her trust brings about a miracle even more powerful than feeding a prophet--she begins to believe and praise God, telling others about the amazing things Elijah had done in God's name.  She is the living example of "I believe God.  Help my unbelief."

It's strange to me how abruptly the story ends though.  She states that she knows he is a man of God and...the next sentence takes us into a new section, three years into the drought.  The only sense I can make of this is that this widow continued to serve and care for Elijah until he was ready to go confront the king.  Another truly amazing example of faith-she took this stranger into her home, he stayed a long time, and she continued to serve.  If only we could all be so faithful and thankful for what God offers!  

Tell me a Jaime: The surrogate sister

When I was pregnant with Tristan, My sister (Auntie Vivi) met a boy she really liked through emailing back and forth.  This boy lived in Alaska.  By the time Tristan was 1, she moved to Alaska to teach and be closer to him.

She was then 3000 miles away from us.

Auntie Vivi's birthday is May 21st and though we didn't always spend it together or celebrate together on that day (it had a bad habit of falling on commencement weekend, which meant dad was very busy), we did like to spend time together around that day.  I really missed having a younger sister to hand out with and celebrate in May.  It was about that time that I realized Jaime's birthday was May 14--exactly a week before Auntie Vivi's, and I asked if she would mind spending her birthday day with us.

That first May that Auntie Vivi was gone (2011), I bought some cheeses, crackers, fresh fruit and juice, packed us up and took Jaime and Tristan to forest park for a picnic and a stroll through the zoo.  The sun was shining, we were laughing (mostly at Tristan's new found curiosity in the world and walking abilities). It was actually just a month shy of her first cluster seizures, and before things started getting scary and difficult.  She was very excited about "Shake it Up," our upcoming VBS that was kitchen and fruit of the spirit focused.  We actually spent a lot of time that day talking about the VBS program she was putting together.

The second year, we went to another doctor's appointment for her that morning (she'd had a seizure a couple of days before) and then met up with James at House of India for lunch.  Afterwards, we got Jilly's cupcakes from next door and then went to a park in Clayton to play.  It was super HOT, and so we made sure we were someplace that they had a water/sprinkler play area, and there was a marimba to play on and a treehouse to climb.  Jaime and I sat in the shade some, while James chased Tristan (though I would take my turn chasing him too).  It was still a very wonderful day, but the feel had changed as Jaime wasn't running alongside us or laughing quite as much as she had before.

We'd even started planning for her last birthday as well, since after months of progress with Dr. Foland, we were hoping after a seizure in January that was followed by 6 weeks of reprieve that maybe she'd be driving again later this year.

We'd grown closer prior to Auntie Vivi leaving too.  We'd joined a community bible study (CBS) in the year before Tristan was born and it sort of became tradition to go out to lunch after that Wednesday morning study and talk about how things had gone in our small group (we were part of different small groups) and about our husbands' programming adventures.  I was only part of that group for a year (having a baby and being in graduate school again made it a bit too touch), but we kept up the lunch tradition as often as we could.  It wasn't weekly by any means, but at least monthly if we could, we'd go to Pearl Cafe or Panera Bread or Las Fuentes and catch up outside of the church.  It was always relaxed, full of laughter and definitely something I always looked forward to.

She really had become like a little sister to me, except perhaps that we seemed to get along better than most siblings most days :D

Tough Faith Questions: God and Healing

It was exciting at first--and easy.  I was asked to put together the bible story and lesson for this Sunday on the Centurion's Servant, found in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10

Jesus Heals a Centurion's Servant

7 After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum.2 Now a centurion had a servant[a] who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. 3 When the centurion[b] heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” 6 And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 8 For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 9 When Jesus heard these things,he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” 10 And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.
Piece of cake, and a story I knew forwards and backwards, thanks to The Donut Man (King of Kings, "The Centurion's Secret").  It's all about faith and trusting in God.  I trust, and I have seen people healed.

Then it started gnawing at me a bit.  Will and Angie have been on my mind a LOT lately.  You see, Will is an amazing man of God with phenomenal song writing ability and a fantastic voice.  He'd been having sinus problems this fall and went to the doctor for something he thought was routine.  Not so routine--cancer.  Fast spreading cancer.  Life saving surgeries have now taken an eye and part of his jaw, and Will's 32.  He's currently in hospice, and continues to write songs, praise God, and spend as much time with family and loved ones as he talks about faith and God's goodness (For more of their story, see http://goteamgray.com/updates/).  I've never met Will or Angie, actually.  They're friends of friends and their blog and journey has touched me so deeply, I just feel like I know them.  More on that in a minute.

It also gnawed at me that this was the same group of children that I would be talking to that had prayed their own little prayers, week after week, for Jaime.  They had prayed for healing and for God to protect her.

How, then, would they hear this story?  This story that's often simply taught as "When you're sick, if you pray to God he will heal you."  If God doesn't physically heal, then what?  God sometimes heals our hearts and minds and nourishes us through the tough times through our souls without healing our physical bodies, but how do you explain that to children?

This is the power of Will's story, certainly.  Every blog entry, every video and every story points to a powerful God that gives hope.  Angie talks about the improvements she notices at times.  Will talks about the tough days, but also that God continues to give him time here, so he uses it the best he can to create new songs and tell stories with friends.  He continues to encourage others.  Will may not be feeling physically healed by God, but I know that he has brought a healing touch to the hearts of many and continues to be a testament to many kinds of healing.

I personally think of Jaime's story much the same way.  Seizures took more and more of her short term memory, but she continued to fight for our youth--she so wanted to be a part of their lives and our Kid-Friendly Worship service.  Depression threatened to take a deep hold at times, but in the last few weeks she was upbeat and as alert as I'd seen her in a long time.  We prayed for healing, and I think we saw it in how she felt about life and in the ways little things came together.  Sam, for one, having taken on the internship to help with youth and family shortly before she passed away, and the ways in which the kids took to him (at least our Tristan certainly did!)

God can heal us when we're sick--but it's not always the physical healing we anticipate it will be.  Sometimes it's healing others in our absence, and sometimes it's heart-healing, soul-nurturing, you-are-loved-and-I'm surrounding-you-in-comfort kinds of healing. ALL of these require faith.  In fact, finding non-physical healing can require even more faith from you as others may start to doubt (look at the story of Job!)

I could tell stories of healing this week--of friends who've fought cancer and won, of those who've battled depression and addiction and car accidents--but is that really the point of the story?  That's often where we focus on the centurion with children, but I think the bigger story is about learning to have faith and to trust that God knows and will use our lives and talents to glorify him, whether that's in our healing or not.

How do YOU talk about faith, God and healing in this story?  What would you most want children to hear in this story? 

Jaime becomes part of "The Family"

College was a time a big transitions for me.  I'd never really "fit" in high school--or at least constantly felt out of place and uncomfortable.  Within the first WEEK of college (August 2000), I realized two major things: 1) I'd left my family home behind (though by only a few blocks) possibly permanently because I did not plan to return after college and 2) I was no longer alone and was now surrounded by other people who'd felt out of place in high school.  Finding a place of belonging, we started referring to ourselves as the "GC Family."

Sidenote:  it was a few months later that I discovered this was why many people began telling my parents I'd "joined a cult" and was getting brainwashed/scary--I didn't know that there had been a cult years before known as "the family."  In retrospect, it's a bit funny that I was responsible for helping create one of the ONLY perceived cults at GC at the time--but I'm sure it scared my parents to death at first.  Now?  They're crazy about this big group of wonderful people that graced our house at christmas for parties and occasionally as a few dropped by during summers or after graduation.

We took this analogy so that that by the fall of my sophomore year, we had a 'family tree' that placed everyone's relationships to each other...and then we also started adding people in classes behind us. I'd met James through choir and "the breakfast club" (very few people utilized the dining commons for breakfast, but I was an early riser and so was Erika--James' girlfriend at the time and my choir roommate.  We sort of dragged him into coming).  Through me, he met Rob and it was like brothers separated at birth.  They became roommates by second semester that year and were often seen together programming, gaming, and finding new ways to steal control of classroom equipment from the professors during class and play pranks (those are fantastic stories for another time).  As James and I spent almost all of interterm together on choir tour in England, we also got to know each other pretty well.  Rob made sure he was added to this crazy family tree.

Fastforward a couple of years.  It was with fear and excitement that I greeted fall 2003--the year my sister, Evangeline, would begin college.  She'd had a bit easier time finding a friend group in high school, but I still hoped that she'd find a group of friends as welcoming as mine when she came to college...but I didn't want to smother her (I wanted her to find her own way and not feel tagged as "Emily's sister" the same way I'd felt confined as "Hartley's daughter" when I arrived).  So I waited.  Her honors group?  Not QUITE as much fun as mine where we'd had a mix of guys and girls that got along well (I mostly hung out with the boys, which shouldn't surprise anyone--especially those that know me well)--but there was this BIG gaggle of girls there who were mostly friendly.  Like my sister, many were education majors.  Maybe this is why Jaime stood out to me.  She was INTIMIDATING to me.

Why?  Well...1) she was really pretty quiet around people who didn't know her very well.  2) She was a math and religion major.  I'd always felt somewhat intimidated and in awe of folks in hard sciences and here was a woman who was a math major.  Not only that, she was a solid, confident (though not arrogant) math major her freshman year.  Most freshman have no clue as to what they want to do.  She did.  I was a senior and found this calm confidence a bit unnerving.  While Heather (Evangeline's roommate) and Christy (one of her best friends) knew who I was and would talk to me in passing, I knew of Jaime primarily from her connections to older honors kids--Kate and Becca, who I'd met the year before and who were her roommates.

Rob and I got married in January (I finished school a semester early and worked as a newspaper reporter while he finished up), and so Rob was no longer James' roommate by about the time they started dating.  We heard rumors of their two hour long walks though and it became a source of amusement for the guys to tease James about his walking habits. 

We spent the next 2 years up in Champaign-Urbana, and so didn't really get to know Jaime very well until right before their wedding, but we KNEW James was head over heels.  Like I said, I primarily knew her through other friends and through my sister.  We moved to St. Louis right before my sister started her senior year of college.  I was teaching a bit at SIUE and GC  and evening ESL, and Rob was writing code for a company while James was working for AT &T and living up the road.  We hung out fairly often just grabbing pizza, playing games, or watching movies.  In March or so, James called Rob and said, "so I hear you don't know you're in my wedding."  So it went--my husband was in the wedding party, my dad was conducting the ceremony and...I sort of watched from a far.  Out of our small St. Louis "group" that was forming, Rob was the only one married until James brought in Jaime.  She was a math and religion major.  She was an incredible baker, I learned quickly,...and she, unlike my sister and her closest friends, was not very gregarious.  I would have to push out of my comfort zone (my mostly introverted 'bubble') in order to begin conversations.

One of the first?  Was trying to explain this weird "family tree" and the "GC family" she'd heard so much about--especially now that she learned the master document had been altered after their wedding, and she'd been added as a branch on this family tree.  It grew a bit easier after that--especially once we helped her move into James' apartment and I saw the massive white hand-made bookshelf she had and heard about all the books that went on it :D  I found it much easier to talk once I found out she was also  a bibliophile.

Tell me a Jaime

When I was a kid, there was a book called "Tell me a Mitzi"that we loved to read:
http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Me-Mitzi-Lore-Segal/dp/0374475024/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366223026&sr=8-1&keywords=tell+me+a+mitzi

In the story, the little girl, Margaret, asks for stories, and her mother tells her about another little girl like her who liked adventures.  It's not clear if the stories are about her, her mother, or someone else but they're always stories about life where they are.

My sincerest hope is that I can remember enough soon in the coming days to start documenting stories of Jaime interacting with Tristan and Roran and that someday they'll ask me to tell them "a Jaime."

Writing through Grief

I woke up at 4 this morning, feeling pinned in, hemmed in by grief.  Tears burnt as they rolled down and I couldn't stop.

The irony to me is that I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she's with God right now.  Jaime's faith wasn't just in her words, it was in her actions.  It was never more tested, she even told me, than over the last two years.

The funny thing?  A week ago, we had talked about her job transitions--she was starting to feel better, more motivated, and more excited about her job than she had for over a year.  The cluster seizures over the past two years had really taken a toll on her morale, as we kept hoping that they were under control.  She'd go several weeks without one, was doing well on sleep and routines and we'd talk excitedly about when she'd be able to drive again (in MO, you have to be seizure free for 6 months before legally allowed to drive) and how the supplements were making her more clear headed and able to remember more.  Then another would strike and we'd all curse, but were thankful that things were looking up.  She had started seeing a counselor months ago to help with the depression.  For over a year, we'd hoped that the seizures would slow down, lessen in number.  They didn't and at times kept her from feeling productive and doing her job or made her feel frustrated and unable to ask for help (and unsure of what help to ask for)--but, she told me last Thursday that she finally felt like she could cope with them.  She seemed somewhat at peace with the fact that they were part of regular life for her, and she didn't grow depressed when they happened or hold her breath that they were gone--she worked around them.  She sounded more upbeat and stronger than I've heard her in ages.  We had an amazing lunch that day as Tristan had asked to see her and she didn't feel so overwhelmed by work that she couldn't join us.  After Las Palmas, she went home to write another story/drama for Kid Friendly Service.

She practically bounced in and out of my car that day--and laughed pretty hard as my two kids proceeded to cry at the same time as we waited for food.  She praised Tristan for sitting in his seat and eating so well with a fork.  She commented on how far he'd come, and fed Roran a bottle while I ate before eating her own food. I kept apologizing for the crazy noise and she told me, "Emily, you have two little ones--this is the way it's supposed to be.  Sort of.  This phase will pass with them, and by then hopefully James and I will have adopted and you can laugh at us and the chaos."

Last Sunday, as we ate lunch together and then played games later that night, we talked a bit more about them adopting, our latest reads,  about dance--and Roran's upcoming baptism.  It was mundane and happy stuff--and, reflecting on a life, I'm so glad it was.

Jaime was so much more than "director of youth and family services" and "a beautiful singing voice" and "a great tap dancer."  Depression had been a challenging road we both walked together, but that didn't define her, either.  She loved the color green. She played scrabble better than anyone else I know.  She loved talking about missions, her time in Africa, her LCGS kids, and had such a passion for ministry it was infectious.  She loved Lia Sophia jewelry--and we'd laugh if we wore the same piece one day.  Her love of reading was amazing too--I found often that if I recommended a book to her that I'd just read, she'd already read it! She was a deep thinker and could be very quiet, but would break into dance in random moments of joy that I had the pleasure of observing on many occasions. She loved James, and we talked often about the challenges and amazing-ness of marriage, especially being married to programmers.  She loved her mom and dad and the passion they have for people and each other.  She loved Kate N. and Katie G. like sisters and we often talked about them as often as we talked about my sister. She was passionate about music and teaching our LCGS sign language to go with the songs.  She created safe places for kids to explore and talk about God and to sing, dance, play and worship as part of our kid friendly service.  She set boundaries and helped children learn how to care for each other within the church.  I found myself in the youth room often staring at the rules on the wall, marveling at the caring and disciplined way in which she constructed these. She did the same with their dog, Lucy (though not in the church!)  She could bake spectacular cheesecakes.  She...

I cannot even find all the words I wish I had to say what a void she leaves behind--in my life, the lives of my children, our church, among our friends and in general. I am amazed at the ripples left behind, but each one speaks of her faith, her passions and a love that connects her to each of us.