by Christie Purifoy | Aug 15, 2013 | Chicago, children, Dreams, Florida, Home, Jesus, motherhood, One Word, Pennsylvania, Seasons, Uncategorized
The cherry trees behind our house may be old, but they are scattering yellow leaves like overeager flower girls before a wedding.
It isn’t time yet, I whisper.
But it is time. No matter what the calendar says, it is time. I know because I have seen this once before. On August first, we began our second year at Maplehurst, and this, yellow leaves on green grass, is the first return.
The first year is a surprise. The second is a return.
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She is eleven months going on all-grown-up, and I have unpacked some of her older sister’s clothes. Here is the white dress Lily wore in her one-year-old portrait. Here is the rainbow-striped sunhat she wore our first summer in our 48th Street condo.
We no longer live in that city, though it was the first place that ever felt like home to me.
My first baby girl is also lost (replaced by a nearly-ten-year-old whose legs look impossibly long in their roller skates). Of course, she returns in memory, she returns in the soft curve of her baby sister’s chin, and, who knows, maybe she’ll show up again when I unpack this dress for a grandbaby someday.
Nothing good is ever truly lost (which is another way of saying that all is being made new).
//
Today, I reread my journal. I remember the wandering years. Those drought years when the smoke of Florida wildfires was like a pillar of cloud. Back then, I wrote down the words of Zechariah.
Though I scatter them among the peoples, yet in distant lands they will remember me. They and their children will … return. I will bring them back.
Moving to this place one year ago felt like this return. Once again, we would know the rush of four seasons, the familiarity of a good friend’s face, the comforting rightness of the words this is my home. All this while watching another baby girl grow.
But return is not a one-time thing.
One year in, and I know that life with God is all about return. I am returned. And every day I am returning.
The prophet’s words tell the story of my life. Of my rescue. They also tell the story of the world:
Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence (Hosea 6:1-2).
We die so many deaths, but we are never lost. The son of God gives himself up but is returned to us on the third day. And every day this world is made new.
Something new!
If creation sings, then those are the words to her song. It is a song about birth. It is a song about coming home. It is the song of our God and our world.
I have seen these yellow cherry leaves before, yet I have never seen them before.
They have returned. They are new.
At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home.
Zephaniah 3:20
by Christie Purifoy | May 21, 2013 | grief, Jesus, Uncategorized
We wake again to the most terrible news.
Like many of you, I turn the radio off when my children stumble, sleepy-eyed, into the kitchen. In an hour, they will sit in their own elementary school classrooms, and I don’t have answers for the questions they will ask.
I pack lunches, and my own head pounds with questions. Old, old questions.
Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?
We are not the first to ask these questions, but they have grown more insistent over the years, not less. At one time, God walked among us. But we have seen so much trouble since those days. We have cried rivers of tears.
I sometimes think I have the answers. When Jesus, speaking of resurrection, says, “Do you believe?” I say, yes. I believe.
But belief is not the same thing as answers. Not, really. Belief cannot silence questions like Why and Where were you?
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Because I believe, I reach too quickly for answers. Because I write stories, I move too soon to imagine happy endings.
In other words, I do not follow the example of the One I profess to follow. It seems too hard to do what he did: to let myself be moved. To let myself be troubled.
To let the tears fall.
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
I don’t have answers for a day like this. How does anyone keep going after a two-mile-wide nightmare overtakes them?
I don’t know.
I hope – I can only hope – that when the time comes to stand up again and move, I will be there, cross in hand, following.
Following the suffering King.
The man of sorrows.
The one who stays and weeps and is moved by our questions.
Why? Why? Where were you?
by Christie Purifoy | Mar 19, 2013 | Faith, Gardening, healing, Jesus, Lent, Seasons, Spring, Uncategorized, Waiting, Winter
Today is the day for a miracle …
Today the calendar says spring, but when has the calendar ever told us anything true?
As I write, darkness has dropped, the wind is howling, and the hanging porch lights are twisting like terrified animals on their chains.
The sound of this wild March wind does not make me feel cozy. It sounds too much like someone in pain.
Today is the day for a miracle …
I keep telling myself spring is already here. I’ve known for days that it was time to plant. Peas, lettuce, radishes, beets, spinach, swiss chard … so much needs to be in the ground.
But who has faith for gardening in the midst of snow flurries and sleet?
Today is the day for a miracle …
The apple trees we ordered months ago have arrived. They look like apple sticks. The children do not believe me when I tell them we’ll bake pies. I’m not sure I believe myself.
But I’ve seen more winters than my children, and I do know this: the day when daffodils emerge is not the day for hope. The day when seedlings show the bright green of new life is not the day for faith. That day came and went.
This is the day for a miracle. This day. The dark day. The cold day. The day when all you can see is mud and broken things, like so many toys strewn across the backyard.
Easter Sunday is not the day for miracles. It is the day for praise.
Every miracle we ever needed, every miracle we ever wanted begins on Good Friday.
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
Isaiah 43:19
*Today I am listening to this song by Hans Kraenzlin
by Christie Purifoy | Feb 26, 2013 | Dreams, God, Jesus, Scripture, Uncategorized
If you walked through my front door today, you would be greeted by three large green splotches. Two on the wall. One on the ceiling over your head. Actually, if you had walked through my front door two months ago, you would have seen the same green splotches.
We were testing paint colors. We even chose one. But in between the choosing and the painting, five-hundred little tasks, and maybe a dozen big tasks, elbowed their way in.
The thing about realizing a big dream is that you will always feel behind. Overwhelmed. In over your head. (Of course, feeling in over your head is generally a sure sign that you are right where you are supposed to be).
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We feel a lot of pressure on Saturday mornings. If not much happens on a Monday, well, no big deal, that’s just Monday. But Saturdays are the days for getting stuff done. Last Saturday, my husband, having just cleaned up all the breakfast dishes, started murmuring about the floor. Would now be a good time to pull out the steam mop?
Loving wife that I am, I shrieked and said, “No! Now would be a good time to get out the paint can!”
Here is one of those ironies about marriage, another of those little things that sound good in theory but mostly annoy in practice: he sees the crumbs and dirt, I see the unpainted walls and the absence of a fence around the garden. On paper this is a match made in heaven. In our house, someone always has their eye on the details and someone else on the big picture.
Unfortunately, the one who is bothered by the lack of a fence is the same one who is not very capable with power tools. But, we’ve learned a few things in our sixteen years of marriage and didn’t waste too much time before I pulled out the mop and he pulled out the paint can.
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When each Saturday (with its ever-growing list of to-dos) comes around, I often find myself repeating these words, “This is only the beginning.” These words remind me that I am exactly where I need to be. They remind me that something good is starting. They remind me that in God’s story, the best is always yet to come.
Though these words are specific to my life here in a new place, I find they are becoming much more than that.
I may be at the beginning of the work God has planned for me here at Maplehurst, but we are all of us at the beginning of things. This is as true for my baby daughter as it is for my older parents.
Our life on this planet is just the beginning. It is chapter one. Or better yet – only the prologue. It is where we begin to experience the work, play, rest, and worship we will enjoy forever.
//
I think “the beginning” matters much more and much less than we typically imagine.
It matters more because the world we are experiencing now is not moving toward destruction. It is moving toward renewal.
It matters less because the petty annoyances, the illnesses, the losses, and even the tragedies we suffer are passing away. The sin and evil and general brokenness that leave us breathless with fear and anger? They have already been defeated. They are on the way out.
I’m afraid too many of us believe the wild poetry of the book of Revelation has not yet happened. That we are still waiting for that victory. But here is the Good News: it is finished. Revelation is simply the Cross from the point of view of heaven.
We don’t throw up our hands and say it will all be sorted out when Jesus comes back.
He already came.
He already sorted it out.
And there is nothing to stop us from sowing those kingdom seeds.
“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.'”
Revelation 21: 5,6
by Christie Purifoy | Jan 9, 2013 | Family, Jesus, motherhood, prayer, Uncategorized
I sometimes wonder why God gave me boys.
Recently, my oldest son had to wear a team sports jersey for “spirit day” at his elementary school. I’m sure whoever came up with this idea imagined it to be fairly inclusive. Who doesn’t have at least one shirt for some kind of team playing just any kind of sport?
Well, our family, actually.
Jonathan and I would rather watch Masterpiece Mystery on PBS than college football, so if we raise a sports fan it will be despite ourselves.
The more children I have, and the bigger and more “boyish” my boys become, the more helpless and inadequate I feel as a mother. You might expect it to work the other way. Don’t I have years of experience tucked under my belt? This is true. However, if you look closely you’ll find years of doubt, years of second-guesses for every parenting decision I’ve made, and many spectacular failures. Nine years after becoming a mother, I am less confident than ever.
I’ve decided this is a good thing. It is good because I am praying like never before. I am praying daily and in desperate bursts. I am praying spontaneously, and I am praying systematically, bowing my head over scribbled prayer cards.
Lord, hear my prayers.
I’m praying, yes, but I’ve been struggling to pray for these boys. Who are they made to be? Who do I hope they will be?
I think a lot of mothers pray for “leaders.” They pray their sons grow up to be leaders in their families, in their churches, in their communities.
I try praying this, and the word leader feels like a pebble in my mouth. Whose word is this, anyway? Where did it come from?
Is this the right word for the boy who prefers the edge of the crowd to its center? The gentle boy who loves his baby sister so much he’ll spend thirty minutes trying to make her laugh? The compassionate boy with the quiet voice who would rather play alone at recess than roughhouse with the other six-year-olds?
I try out the word servant-leader. I hear a lot about that one, too. But there’s the pebble again, and I ask myself, “What’s wrong with just servant?”
In my mind, I see Jesus. He is kneeling in the dust of the floor washing feet. I may be uncomfortable with what counts as masculine in our culture, but even I find it difficult to pray this kneeling-in-the-dirt way of life for my boys.
But my son is teaching me how to pray for him.
Here he is beside me. We are bathing his baby sister. I watch as he takes the washcloth and leans across the edge of the tub. Slowly and carefully, he wipes between each little toe.
Lord, hear my prayers.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 24, 2012 | Advent, Jesus, prayer, Scripture, Uncategorized
He who testifies to these things says: “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.
– Revelation 22:20-21
