Forsaken For Me

I was pretty little—seven or eight, I think. Sadly, I have no one left to fact check for me.

But I remember it like it was yesterday, one of those unexpected moments in everyday life that are seared in your memory forever. And they influence you in ways you can’t know when they are happening.

Spring had sprung and Easter was on its way. For me, that meant shiny, new, white, patent leather shoes and maybe even an Easter bonnet—if we could cajole and wheedle my thrifty daddy into it. We rarely had new dresses for the occasion; we always seemed to have our pick of assorted hand-me-downs in abundance to wear. But having new accessories made me feel like I could prance down Fifth Avenue in the Easter parade with the best of them!

Easter also meant dying eggs, an egg hunt, baskets filled with chocolate, a big ham dinner, a nature walk at Parvin’s…and lots of things to do at church.

I especially loved the community Good Friday Service. It was held each year from noon to three o’clock in the afternoon at the prettiest church in town, an old stone structure adorned with incredibly brilliant stain-glass windows simply alive with stories from the Bible. We had nothing like that in our rather sparse and plain church building! I leaned back on the comfortable, cushioned pews, enthralled to be surrounded by all my Bible heroes, listening to a pipe organ sweetly saturate the sanctuary with the most beautiful of all traditional hymns. It felt like a bit of heaven on earth.

Each church in the area was assigned one of the seven last “words” Jesus spoke from the cross. One by one, in turn, a member of each congregation would read their designated portion of scripture, a musician would sing or play, and then their pastor would share a devotional thought about Jesus’ utterance. When he finished, there would be a ten-minute interlude of more majestic organ music as folks, somberly and quietly, filed in and out, staying for only the time they desired to spend or for the words they wanted to hear.   

A little sleepy, a little drifty, a little distracted by the other-worldly atmosphere surrounding me, I was jarred back to reality as I watched my pastor, sitting just two rows ahead of my family, stand slowly to his feet, interrupting the speaker at the podium who was preaching on the text found in Matthew 25:46, the fifth saying. “…my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I sat up straighter in wonder. I could see tears streaming down his face. What on earth? Certainly this was a very sad scripture passage, but why was he disturbing the message? What had I missed?

“Brother,” my pastor spoke tenderly. “I am sorry I must stop you. I can’t let you continue preaching what is not true. God the Father did turn his back on His precious Son as He bore the sins of the world.”

He sat down.

Apparently, the speaker was expressing his personal belief that a God of love would never abandon His Son, that there must be a different interpretation of the scripture.

Uncomfortable silence. Nervous coughing. Shuffling feet. Whispers that reverberated around our little town for years and years afterward.  

The speaker cleared his throat and rather awkwardly began once more. I don’t have a clue how he regrouped, and I don’t remember anything he said from then on.

But I remember what my bold pastor had so brokenly asserted…even sixty-five years later.

And I think about it every Good Friday….and many more times during the year. The forsaken Son. The interchange of the pastors is at the heart of the Gospel.

Did God really forsake His Son that He loved? At His most desperate moment? How could He?

And why?

Little Me, primarily based on my relationship with my dear earthly father (even though he was a bit of a cheapskate!), could not fathom such a thing. Not from a perfect Father. Little Me just didn’t get it. I cried at the thought of the Father turning away from His Son. What did my respected pastor mean?

And Big Me, as I’ve thought about and studied it, is quite relieved to discover that much brighter, wiser folks than I have similarly struggled with this. I know now that my childhood pastor was right in what he said that long ago afternoon. And it still brings me to tears.

Because I know Jesus was forsaken for me…

Not long ago, I found this interesting and helpful article written by Donald Macleod about those sad words Jesus cried out from the cross.

At the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (Mark 15:34)

Up to this point, the narrative of the crucifixion has focused on the physical sufferings of Jesus: the flogging, the crown of thorns, and his immolation on the cross. Six hours have now passed since the nails were driven home. The crowds have jeered, darkness has covered the land, and now, suddenly, after a long silence, comes this anguished cry from the depths of the Savior’s soul.

The words are an Aramaic-tinged quotation from Psalm 22, and although Matthew and Mark both offer a translation for the benefit of Gentile readers, they clearly want us to hear the exact words that Jesus spoke. At his lowest ebb, his mind instinctively breathes the Psalter, and from it he borrows the words that express the anguish, not now of his body, but of his soul.

He bore in his soul, wrote Calvin, “the terrible torments of a condemned and lost man” (Institutes, II:XVI, 10). But dare we, on such hallowed ground, seek more clarity?

There are certainly some very clear negatives. The forsakenness cannot mean, for example, that the eternal communion between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was broken. God could not cease to be triune.

Neither could it mean that the Father ceased to love the Son: especially not here, and not now, when the Son was offering the greatest tribute of filial piety that the Father had ever received.

Nor again could it mean that the Holy Spirit had ceased to minister to the Son. He had come down upon him at his baptism not merely for one fleeting moment, but to remain on him (John 1:32), and he would be there to the last as the eternal Spirit through whom the Son offered himself to God (Hebrews 9:14).

And finally, the words are not a cry of despair. Despair would have been sin. Even in the darkness God was, “My God,” and though there was no sign of him, and though the pain obscured the promises, somewhere in the depths of his soul there remained the assurance that God was holding him. What was true of Abraham was truer still of Jesus: Against all hope, he in hope believed (Romans 4:18).

Yet, with all these qualifiers, this was a real forsaking. Jesus did not merely feel forsaken. He was forsaken; and not only by his disciples, but by God himself. It was the Father who had delivered him up to Judas, to the Jews, to Pilate, and finally to the cross itself.

And now, when he had cried, God had closed his ears. The crowd had not stopped jeering, the demons had not stopped taunting, the pain had not abated. Instead, every circumstance bespoke the anger of God; and there was no countering voice. This time, no word came from heaven to remind him that he was God’s Son, and greatly loved. No dove came down to assure him of the Spirit’s presence and ministry. No angel came to strengthen him. No redeemed sinner bowed to thank him.

Who was he? He cries out in Aramaic, but he doesn’t use the greatest of all the Aramaic words, Abba. Even in the anguish of Gethsemane, distraught and overborne though he was, he had been able to use it (Mark 14:36). But not here.

Like Abraham and Isaac going up to Mount Moriah, he and the Father had gone up to Calvary together. But now Abba is not there. Only El is there: God All-mighty, God All-holy. And he is before El, not now as his Beloved Son, but as the Sin of the World. That is his identity: the character in which he stands before Absolute Integrity.

It is not that he bears some vague relation to sinners. He is one of them, numbered with transgressors. Indeed, he is all of them. He is sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), condemned to bear its curse; and he has no cover. None can serve as his advocate. Nothing can be offered as his expiation. He must bear all, and El will not, cannot, spare him till the ransom is paid in full. Will that point ever be reached? What if his mission fails?

The sufferings of his soul, as the old divines used to say, were the soul of his suffering, and into that soul we can see but dimly. Public though the cry was, it expressed the intensely private anguish of a tension between the sin-bearing Son and his heavenly Father: the whirlwind of sin at its most dreadful, God forsaken by God.

But no less challenging than the torment in Jesus’s soul is his question, “Why?“ Is it the why of protest: the cry of the innocent against unjust suffering? The premise is certainly correct. He is innocent. But he has lived his whole life conscious that he is the sin-bearer and has to die as the redemption-price for the many. Has he forgotten that now?

Or is it the why of incomprehension, as if he doesn’t understand why he’s here? Has he forgotten the eternal covenant? Perhaps. His mind, as a human mind, could not be focused on all the facts at the same time, and for the moment the pain, the divine anger, and the fear of eternal perdition (the cross being God’s last word) occupy all his thoughts.

Or is it the why of amazement, as he confronts a dreadfulness he could never have anticipated? He had known from the beginning that he would die a violent death (Mark 2:20), and in Gethsemane he had looked it in the eye, and shuddered. But now he is tasting it in all its bitterness, and the reality is infinitely worse than the prospect.

Never before had anything come between him and his Father, but now the sin of the whole world has come between them, and he is caught in this dreadful vortex of the curse. It is not that Abba is not there, but that he is there, as the Judge of all the earth who could condone nothing and could not spare even his own Son (Romans 8:32).

Now, Jesus’s mind is near the limits of its endurance. We, sitting in the gallery of history, are sure of the outcome. He, suffering in human nature the fury of hell, is not. He is standing where none has stood before or since, enduring at one tiny point in space and in one tiny moment of time, all that sin deserved: the curse in unmitigated concentration.

But then, suddenly, it is over. The sacrifice is complete, the curtain torn, and the way into the Holiest opened once and for all; and now Jesus’s joy finds expression in the words of another psalm, Psalm 31:5. In the original, it had not contained the word Abba, but Jesus inserts it: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

We have no means of knowing what intervened between the two cries. We know only that the Cup is drained and the curse exhausted, and that the Father now proudly holds out his hands to the spirit of his Beloved Son.

Donald Macleod (1940–2023) served as professor of systematic theology at the Free Church of Scotland College in Edinburgh for more than thirty years. He authored many books, including The Person of Christ and Christ Crucified.

John MacArthur says, “In some way and by some means, in the secrets of divine sovereignty and omnipotence, the God Man was separated from God for a brief time at Calvary, as the furious wrath of the Father was poured out on the sinless Son, who in matchless grace became sin for those who believe in Him.”

Oh, I believe in Him! I just have to. He bore the wrath of God, satisfied the wrath of God, for MY sin—so I don’t have to.

What a loving thing to do!

Can we carelessly and foolishly ignore this One who so willingly and horrifically sacrificed Himself on our behalf?

The One Who was forsaken by God so we never will be?

The Father’s love did not restrain Him from turning away from His Son; the Father’s love compelled Him to---for me and for you.

One pastor got it right that distant Good Friday.

But one didn’t.

I’m so thankful the one who did was mine and I witnessed it. He set me on a lifelong journey to seek and know the truth, to wrestle with hard verses and ask questions when I didn’t get it, and to boldly stand up for what God’s Word is saying regardless of the backlash, regardless of the pain. I only wish I was better at it. But He also stirred in me a deep love and gratitude for my precious Savior—and not just at Eastertime.  

I hope he has stirred you as well.

He will be smiling in heaven.

—Eileen Hill

Trusting Him in Your Storm

My right wrist is throbbing tonight. I know what that means.

Maybe you have a barometer tucked inside one of your old, creaky joints too.

It’s going to storm.

Soon.

I don’t have to check with any other weather information source out there—no matter how reliable and credible their reputation.

My aching wrist never gets it wrong.

Don’t you wish LIFE’S storms were as easily and accurately predicted? That we had fair warning about the annoying showers and the devastating hurricanes that may be lurking ahead of us on our journey?

Just this past week, so many dear ones I know have suddenly been shrouded in dark clouds while wild winds, flashing lightning, and torrents of rain seem to hammer them without mercy. A job lost unfairly without notice. A scary prognosis following surgery. A miscarriage. An unwanted and ugly divorce. A betrayal of a spouse. My circumstance seems like a delightful summer shower compared to my friends’ tsunamis.

As I pray for my friends, as I face the over-my-head plan of bringing my dear and needy mother-in-law home, I long to hear from my Father. The thunder is rumbling…

Storms, theirs and mine, even yours, are His specialty.

I found great comfort and God’s truth in the writings of Alistair Begg in Truth for Life, 365 Daily Devotions.

When Storms Come

“A great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling…And they woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’”  Mark 4:37-39

Anyone who has lived for much time at all knows that in life storms will surely come. Sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere, we are faced with an unexpected job loss, a grim diagnosis, the painful passing of a loved one, or the sorrow of goodbyes. Like the disciples caught in the storm on the Sea of Galilee, we can feel overwhelmed by these trials, as if our boat were sinking.

Following Jesus does not insulate us from life’s storms, but we can take comfort from knowing that God promises to hold us fast through them. He can calm our hearts, and He may even quiet the very storms themselves.

When storms come, we are often tempted to doubt God. The disciples questioned Jesus even though they had seen His miracles firsthand. They looked Jesus in the eye, and they shared meals with Him every day—but when the storm arose, they took to panic stations of unbelief as if they’d forgotten who He was or what He was capable of doing. Don’t we often find ourselves there too? As soon as the turbulence hits—as soon as life’s winds and waves rise—our doubts and weaknesses burst forth, and we forget who it is who dwells within us and what He is capable of doing.

God does not prevent storms from coming. But He is a God who is both present through them and sovereign over them. Jesus not only stayed with the disciples during the storm, but He displayed His power by calming it. As God, He had created the sea itself. Why would the sea ever be a problem for Him? For us, too, even circumstances that seem hopeless and insurmountable unfold exactly as He has planned. When difficulties, fear, and pain persist, we can trust Him to give us a peace that “surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) and bring us through to a place of calm, whether it arrives in this life or only beyond the final tempest of death.

The question, then, is not “Will storms come in my life!” They surely will. Rather, we must ask, “When the storms do come, will I believe that Jesus Christ is able to deal with them—and will I let Him do that?” He can lift the clouds of doubt fogging our minds. He can mend broken hearts. He can soothe our longings for love. He can revive weary spirits. He can calm anxious souls.

When you see Jesus as the Creator of the universe, the one who calmed the sea, and the one in whom everything holds together, then you too can experience the calming of the storm.

 So even though I may be blindsided by a dark, violent, frightening storm in this life, even though I have had no warning or time to prepare, He is the God who is both present with me in my storm and sovereign over it. Will I trust Him with my circumstances?  

Doesn’t it always come to that? Trusting Him?

As scary and daunting as my days ahead look to me right now, as the raindrops mingle with my tears running down my cheeks, I am determined to trust Him in my little thunderstorm.

Oh, Father, help my unbelief.

And remind me, Jesus, when my joints kick up a fuss, to be praying for all those who are clinging to you in life’s storms and for those who will soon be caught up in one. Will you calm their squalls? Will you show them you are near? Will you help them to trust you more?

Will you give them peace?

Thank you, dear Savior.

You are trustworthy.

—Eileen Hill

Finding Jesus

I couldn’t find Him. And I looked everywhere.

How could I lose Baby Jesus?

I was humming “Joy to the World” as I busily pulled my Christmas decorations from the stacks of boxes in my dusty basement. I smiled with pleasure, joy truly flooding my heart, as I rediscovered the charming Thomas Kincaid nativity set that I had inherited a couple years earlier. Because we had visited family out of state the past couple of years, I had only minimally decorated our home for Christmas. I had forgotten all about this beautiful gift.

Now this is not an ordinary creche with its traditional figurines. A dear elderly friend of mine with very limited means had splurged on this particular set, purchasing pieces of it separately over several years. And it has lots of pieces—all packed in a multitude of crumbling Styrofoam containers. Exquisitely crafted, sacrificially obtained, it was quite precious to her and she wanted me to have it when she was gone. So now, of course, it is very precious to me.

Thank you, dear Mildred.

I hauled the boxes upstairs and packed up all the dishes on my hutch to make room for the rustic stable and all the handsome figures. Beside the familiar cast of characters and creatures, this incredibly large nativity set includes a centurion, a multitude of various angels, and even the little drummer boy. There are even some figures I don’t recognize.

I was down to opening the last squeaky box when I realized I had not found Baby Jesus nor the manger. A massive search party of my whole house ensued…one that lasted for days.

I simply could not find Jesus.

And that gave me pause. I thought about it a lot.

In fact, it overshadowed my holiday season. It became the overarching, ever-present question or theme that replayed in my head like a stuck old LP record.

Where’s Jesus? Where IS He?

After all, isn’t He the singularly most significant figure in that stable, in the whole scene I so carefully arranged? Isn’t He the central focus of the entire Christmas celebration? Isn’t the holiday pointless without the Christ child?

Very good questions that prompted some very thought-provoking answers.

I was desperate to find Him, to put Him where He should be.

So I determined I would…even if it wasn’t in some forsaken, spidery corner of my basement. Or in the manger on my hutch where I thought He belonged.

And, you know, with my Father’s help, I did find Him. Over and over again in the hustle and bustle of Advent. Here and there in places I never expected to find Him.

He was exactly where He belonged.

And I am most grateful.

I found Him in the unexpected and paralyzing moments of grief over facing family holiday gatherings without my big sister for the first time ever.

I found Him in the busyness of shopping, food preparation, decorating, wrapping, planning, and cleaning for a house full of company, my most favorite and exhausting enterprise of the year, a season when I regretfully often overlook Whose birthday it is in my bustle.

I found Him in the quiet moments of my tearful prayers for so many that I love who are not looking for Jesus at all and for those whose physical and emotional and relational needs are crushing them and breaking them, whose days may not be so merry or bright.

I found Him in the laughter and warmth and blessing of just sweetly being together with the precious ones who are mine.

I found Him on the floor of the bedroom where I held my dear mother-in-law, waiting for help to get her back up to bed. I found Him with her the next day in the helicopter that air lifted her to Cooper because of a nasty stroke. And then when she had another. I found Him in rehab with her, holding her near as she struggles to make sense of what has ravaged her brain so heartlessly.

I found Him in the middle of my fear concerning my mother-in-law’s future care and the weight of that heavy responsibility and my very obvious inadequacies.

I found Him calmly and patiently whispering to me as I navigated my stress-related vertigo and double vision issues that threaten to take me out.

I found Him in the strength and prayers of my loving husband and my wise children and theirs. I found Him in the brilliant, star-studded winter sky. I found Him in the Advent messages delivered so powerfully the weeks leading to Christmas.  I found Him in the glorious and compelling traditional Christmas music that touched my soul. I found Him in thoughtful unexpected gifts and cards of friendship. I found Him in the intimate dinner shared with my Pastorate family. I found Him in the middle of the devastating and crippling news of wars, fires, earthquakes, riots, murders, abuses, shootings, injustices, feuds, inflation, crooked politicians, rebellion, addictions, divorce, betrayal, cancers, and mental illness.

I found Him in all these moments, in all these sorrowful, uncontrollable, mundane, confusing, exhausting, hopeless, or happy situations of life.

Why?

I was looking for Him.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13 ESV)

Like the prompted shepherds, like the curious wisemen, I sought Him this Christmas. Relentlessly. 

Because, unlike those obedient seekers, I already knew where He was and Who He was…and is. I even knew that I needed Him. I just needed a gentle push, a subtle reminder.

His name is Immanuel. God with us. GOD with ME!

Amazing. Humbling.

Oh, so helpful.

Because this is so not about me.

It is about the object of my search.

It is all about HIM and Who He is.

Because of His timely disappearance from my creche, my gracious Father reminded me of the importance, no, the urgency of finding Jesus, my Savior, in every moment of every day. Especially the busy ones when we are so easily distracted and our hearts are so carelessly wooed away to lesser gods. Especially the dark and pain-filled ones when we are groping for answers that just aren’t there.

But He is.

The Babe left Bethlehem in the dust and turned His lovely face purposefully to the cross. His earthly life was lived to accomplish the Father’s perfect plan to restore a broken and wayward world back into stunning relationship with Him.

In fact, in John 14:23, Jesus says, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Did you get that?

And we have a myriad of other verses in His Word that promise His nearness, His tender care, His love for those who have placed their faith in Him as Savior and King.  

He is here. He is with you. Really.

Call off the search party.

Be thrilled the manger is empty.     

Bow your knees in gratitude and raise your voice in adoration.

You can experience a very different 2024 if you fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith story. Diligently search for Him in every moment, in every situation of the year. See what He is up to and join Him. Look for paths where He is leading you and follow. Rest in His care and protection. Listen to His voice and hear His promises.

You will find Him.

He isn’t hiding.

Just be sure you are looking.           

“Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon him while he is near; (Isaiah 55:6)

—Eileen Hill

Any Room?

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

My experience wasn’t the same as Mary’s. Well, not in the end anyway. And not in lots of other ways!

We had traveled across Virginia. It was getting late and I was finished. Young and probably quite foolish, Kenny and I had decided to take a little vacation and visit his brother, Jerry, a proud sailor in the U.S. Navy. His ship had just docked in Newport News and we wanted to see him.

Now, I’m an over-zealous vacation planner, a bit of a travel junkie. Once I knew we were heading to Virginia, I got out my boxes of trusty maps and Mobil Travel Guides (Oh, how far we’ve come) and planned a route that would literally take us all over that state, stopping to visit every historic site, explore every tourist trap, hike every waterfall trail, and take pictures at every scenic viewpoint recommended to this tour enthusiast. We had two small children, ages one and three. And I was eight months pregnant. Yeah. Not smart.

Virginia is a big state and my plans were even bigger. Unfortunately, we could only be away a few days and we quickly ran out of time long before we exhausted my ambitious itinerary. Thankfully. Yes, I had overdone it. For sure. I was feeling some concerning pain. I needed to rest. The kids were beat. We immediately revised our schedule and made tracks from the lovely Blue Ridge mountains in the western part of the state eastward toward the Navy base. And toward the very popular August tourist attractions of coastal Virginia.

It was late when we neared our destination. But there were no rooms anywhere. No Vacancy signs taunted us at every exit. It was getting later and less hopeful each time we asked if there had been any cancelations or if they had suggestions for where we could go. We didn’t know what to do and both of us were getting quite anxious. The kids had conked out hours before. I knew I needed to just sleep and get my swollen feet up.

In desperation, after yet one more failed attempt to secure lodging, Kenny suggested I go inside and ask for a room. He was hoping the desk clerk would feel sorry for me, a bedraggled and weary woman with a very big belly. And I must have been a pitiful sight because, in minutes, we were snoozing away in a very clean and cool Comfort Inn suite, the very last motel that had just turned Kenny away!

But that didn’t happen for Mary. And that breaks my heart.

I’ve thought about that a lot over the years--especially during Advent season when beautiful carols remind me again and again of Joseph’s worried and desperate search for lodging. The lovely refrains echo the saddest words of the season to me. There was no room. No room for Mary or Joseph.

But more than that, there was no room for the Savior of the world.

No room for the King!

Here is a perspective on this subject from Rick Warren that I think you will like. It’s titled Is There Room in Your Inn?

No holiday on our calendar gets as much advertising time as Christmas. This month you can’t turn on your television, open a website, or check your email without hearing the word “Christmas.” You see beautifully decorated trees everywhere you turn. You’ll notice lots of chubby guys with white beards in red and white suits.

You simply can’t miss Christmas as a cultural phenomenon.

But you can miss the birth of Jesus.

You can miss the very point of Christmas.

That dilemma isn’t just a product of our time. Even people who were alive during that very first Christmas—just right around the corner from Jesus himself—missed the point of Christmas. And they missed it for the very same reasons we do today.

Take the innkeeper for example.

You know the story. In the last week of her pregnancy, Mary and Joseph have to go to their hometown of Bethlehem. They live in a city called Nazareth and need to be involved in a census with the Roman government.

As they get to Bethlehem, Mary goes into labor. Her water breaks. She’s ready to deliver. And Joseph tries to check her into the local Holiday Inn. The innkeeper comes out and says, “Sorry, no vacancies. There’s no room in the inn.”

Luke 2:7 tells it like this: And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.  (Luke 2:7 ESV)

Think about this from the innkeeper’s perspective. If he has no more room in his inn, that’s good. It means business is booming. If you own a motel, you want it to be sold out. A lot of out-of-town guests have come back to town for the census. They’re looking for a place to stay. And he’s all booked up.

The innkeeper has no use for this little baby or this pregnant woman. He doesn’t know who he is snubbing.

The Son of God could have been born in that inn. Imagine the public relations power of that! You could put up a sign: “Son of God born here!” You’d be sold out in your inn for the rest of your life.

God was coming to Earth in human form. (The innkeeper) could have been a part of it. But (he)missed the greatest opportunity imaginable because he was busy. He missed it because business was booming.

Are you too busy with your work to make room for Jesus this Christmas? Is your schedule, your plans, or your budget too tight to let Jesus in?

Just like that innkeeper, you could be missing out on the biggest opportunity of your life this Christmas. God is right here. He wants to be a part of your life. God coming into the lives of ordinary people like you and me is the point of Christmas.

 So, dear friends, do the words, “no room” stir your heart like they do mine? Maybe it’s because the Holy Spirit is inviting us to something more in the busyness of this beautiful season of celebration, something more meaningful than our usual trappings and traditions, no matter how fun and exciting they may be.

Perhaps, if we purposefully silence the noise for a moment, for just a moment, we may hear the gentle knocking at the door of our hearts.

He wants to come in.

Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown,

When Thou camest to earth for me;

But in Bethlehem’s home was there found no room

 For Thy holy nativity.

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,

 There is room in my heart for Thee.

When the heavens shall ring, and the angels sing,

At Thy coming to victory,

Let Thy voice call me home, saying “Yet there is room,

 There is room at My side for thee.”

 My heart shall rejoice, Lord Jesus,

When Thou comest and callest for me.

Have you any room for Jesus,

He who bore your load of sin?

As He knocks and asks admission,

Sinner, will you let Him in?

 Room for Jesus, King of glory!

Hasten now, His word obey;

 Swing the heart’s door widely open,

Bid Him enter while you may.

Oh, my friends, let’s make room.

Let’s not miss Him!

—Eileen Hill

I Will Miss Her

My big sister died a couple of weeks ago. I am still in shock, processing the grief that fills my heart. I have been immersing myself in promises from God’s Word, in comforting hymns of the faith, and receiving counsel and prayer from trusted, wise friends and family. What a blessing to be part of the family of God, to be cared for by not only my Father, but by my brothers and sisters in Christ! I am most thankful.

I also have found help in my journey of grief through the writings of some of my favorite radio pastors. May I share one from Allistair Begg in his devotional, Truth for Life, that encouraged me? I think it will encourage you as well.

Gracious Gratitude

“Being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”  Colossians 1:11-12

Almost everyone appreciates a good gift. Family, freedom, leisure, a warm bed, and a refreshing drink all make for a grateful heart, and we’re all naturally able to express at least some measure of gratitude for them. “Thank you” is a phrase we learn young.

The American revivalist Jonathan Edwards helpfully distinguished between what he referred to as “natural gratitude” and “gracious gratitude.” Natural gratitude starts with the things we’re given and the benefits which accompany them. Anybody is capable of natural gratitude. Gracious gratitude, though, is very different, and only God’s children can experience and express it. Gracious gratitude recognizes the character, goodness, love, power, and excellencies of God, regardless of any gifts or enjoyments He has given. It knows we have reason to be grateful to God whether it’s a good day or a bad day, whether we’re employed or unemployed, whether the daily news is upbeat or overwhelming, whether we’re completely healthy or facing a terminal diagnosis. Such gratitude is only discovered by grace, and it is a true mark of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life. Gracious gratitude enables us to face all things with the awareness that God is profoundly involved in our lives and circumstances for He has made us special objects of His love. 

When Jonathan Edwards died as a result of a smallpox vaccination, Sarah, his wife, wrote to their daughter, “What shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud.” Notice the honesty in that. There’s no superficial triumphalism. But her husband was not taken out by chance: it was the overruling sovereignty of God that determined the right time to bring Jonathan home to his eternal reward. And so Sarah continued, “But my God lives and he has my heart…We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be.”

Amid grief, we will never be able to speak words like these from natural gratitude, which cannot help us in loss. Such reflection can only flow from gracious gratitude. You may be facing difficult or even heartbreaking circumstances at the moment; and if you are not, then that day will come, for this is a fallen world. But in those moments, you can cling to God’s love and choose to trust God’s goodness, expressed most clearly at the cross. Then, even in the darkest hours, you will know the joy of His presence and always have cause to give thanks to Him. There is strength, dignity, and worship in being able to say, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).

So, friends, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the disposition and intention of my heart is for gracious gratitude. I don’t grieve as one who has no hope. I am thankful, I am confident that my sister is with our merciful Savior, the very best place she could be. And I am choosing to cling to my Father’s love and trust His goodness, His timing, His wisdom, and His sovereignty as I unexpectedly walk through this valley of shadows and dark clouds.

He is with me. I know I am His. I am given to God.

There I, too, love to be.

Even in my grief.

Especially in my grief.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

And it’s okay to miss her.

—Eileen Hill

Seeking and Surrendering

Picking up the small, tattered book, I blew off the dusty cover. It fell open in my hands and I read this preface, one I had read many, many times before.

THE SEEKER

     God is a Father. I a weary child. He is beyond all thought or reach of mine, but if I come to Him, He will lead me blind and weak among the dangers—guiding on, I follow through the strangest winding paths: and He will lead me to His own belief. I trust everything to Him. (Diaries, 1856 {age 23})

Instantly, I remembered why I had used this little devotional guide for so very many years. As before, my heart thudded in my chest and my eyes spilled over with tears. Hannah Whitall Smith spoke my language, expressing in powerful and touching words the cries of my soul, the swirling, elusive thoughts of my brain. Words I just didn’t have. Words I so wished to be true.

And I had forgotten.

For the past several years, I had chosen a variety of authors and different devotionals to accompany me on my yearly journeys with my Father. And, honestly, none had lived up to my pretty high expectations. Because I am usually adamant about finishing the things I start and, honestly, because I already spent the money, I will continue this year’s devotional selection through December. Maybe it will get better. Come January, though, God is Enough, this well-worn classic by Mrs. Smith, will sit on top of my Bible in my chair once again.

But for today, I flipped eagerly through the coffee-stained pages and ended with glancing at my scribbled notes on the inside of the back cover. When I am reading, I love to write down subjects and verses that particularly touch me or ones that I want to study further or use in my writings. I like to remind myself down the road of particular things God is teaching me or ways He wants to refine me or use me. Most of my books are pretty marked up.

At the top of that last page, in fairly large print, I had scrawled:

Aug 29-

Prayer of Total Surrender

Curiously, I flipped back the pages and searched for that date. Here is what I read.

Totally Consecrating

Lord, I am Yours, Yours wholly and Yours forever! I am Yours by the purchase of Your blood, and I give myself to You now as a living sacrifice—body, soul, and spirit—to be as clay in Your hands.

I give you my heart, Lord, to love only what You love, to hate what You hate, to endure all things, to suffer long and be kind, to be not easily provoked. To think no evil, not to seek my own, help me, oh my God!

I give You my mind to be wholly devoted to Your service and perfectly under Your control, to think only those thoughts that will please You, to devise only such plans as You suggest, to yield the management of all its affairs to You. To bring every thought to the obedience of Christ, help me, oh my God!

I give You my body to be used by You—my eyes to see only what You would have them see, my ears to hear only what You would have them hear, my feet to go only where You lead, my hands to do such work only as can be done in fellowship with You, my tongue to speak only words that please You. I give my time to You, Lord, to be all Yours. Help me, oh my God!

I give You my children, my husband, and all whom I love, to be disposed of according to Your will. I leave to You the ordering of my whole life, and with Your help will follow You wherever You lead. I will give You the control of my feelings and of my prejudices. I submit in short my whole being and life—all that I am, and have, and will be, to Your control; and ask only that Your will may be perfectly done in me, through me, and by me! Take me and keep me, oh my God! (Diary.1859)

Wow. I needed this, I said out loud. I need to make this declaration. 

And there, right by August 29, I had penned “2007” and the words, “I needed this.” And my all-knowing and gracious Father had led me right back to this prayer of consecration again, one I needed then, one I needed now. He is so kind. And He wants all of me. All the time. Still.

I thought about life since 2007, sixteen years of some pretty difficult and ugly life (and death) situations and circumstances. Also many beautiful ones. I am so thankful I was safe in my Father’s protective arms. In joy and sorrow, He was always near. And for much longer than just sixteen years!

This is not a one-and-done surrender. Too many times I find myself untying myself and crawling off the altar. How often I try to go it alone, impatient at perceived delays in getting what I want! How often do I chase after false saviors or fall into idolatry? I get busy. I get lazy. I get careless. I am broken. I am messy. I am easily fooled. No matter. I am His child and He still wants me. He patiently calls me. He forgives my wanderings. Oh, I need to give myself to the loving Father every day.

Did you need this reminder today too? Did you need to remember Whose you are and tell Him you do?

Hannah Whitall Smith, such a faithful woman of God, will be happy to remind you too. I have learned a lot from her honest and insightful writings.

Maybe you will want to read through God is Enough with me next year.

Let me know.

We can be Seekers and Surrender-ers together.   

He is waiting.

—Eileen Hill

Christmas in August

Sometimes, God quite unexpectedly and purposefully changes my mind and turns me gently around. Does He do that to you too? That happened this past week as I was writing this month’s blog. Suddenly, I was pulled in a completely different direction than I had been heading. This blog kind of wrote itself…

It’s because three things happened.

First, I was opening mail for my “boss,” the dear, legally blind lady I care for. Recently discharged from rehab due to a fall, she has been unable to attend her little church outside of Bridgeton. When she misses, the elderly and efficient church secretary sends her a Sunday bulletin to keep her up to date on the congregation and all the happenings.

“How many now?” she asked eagerly as soon as I retrieved the bulletin from the envelope. I smiled, knowing just what she meant.

“1,769,” I responded incredulously.

This faithful, generous flock of way less than 100 mostly senior saints has already donated 1,769 shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child, the Christmas gift initiative from Samaritan’s Ministries that sends tens of thousands of colorful boxes chock full of gifts for marginalized children across the globe. After this past Sunday, the number of these boxes from that congregation has probably increased once more.

And this is August!

Now I can’t speak to the quality of the contents of all those boxes. I do know, however, what my sweet boss puts together each year in the ten shoe boxes she donates. I am the one who orders, shops, and helps her package them up. She stuffs them with a variety of nice gifts. And we love doing it. It gives us both great satisfaction and joy thinking we are going to put a smile on the face of a child thousands of miles away, a child loved by our Savior, a child He wants to bless. 

After talking about what items she still needs to purchase in order to finish up her boxes for this year, it occurred to me to pop up the Operation Christmas Child’s website and read her some stories of children who had received boxes in various needy countries in the past. I wish she had been able to see the short testimonial video clips of some of the smiling, grateful folks who had been gifted a shoe box as children. They explained what it had meant to them. We had to be satisfied, because of her eyesight, for me to just read their words.

This was the second impactful event of the week.

We both wiped away tears as we heard about Jaki from an under resourced orphanage in Guatemala who shared a toothbrush with ten other little girls. She received a shoe box and in it was her very own toothbrush. She was overwhelmed, amazed that someone so far away would think of her. Care.

A little girl named Nadia was overjoyed to find Barbie in her box. Unselfishly, she shared it with all the other little girls in her village, passing it around night after night so everyone had a turn to love and play with a real doll. She barely got to enjoy her gift herself, but she was glad to make others happy. Precious!

Our favorite story was about a young boy named Yves of Rwanda who found a wool scarf in the shoe box he was given, the very first gift he had ever received in his life. Disappointed, he tried to trade it for a soccer ball his friend had happily discovered in his shoe box. Yves lived in the tropics. Nobody needed or wanted a scarf. He packed the impractical gift away.

Then, three years later, Yves and his whole family were evacuated from his war-torn country to Buffalo, New York, one of America’s chilliest cities!  

Receiving the scarf was no coincidence, Yves says with a big smile. “Jesus is always a step ahead, waiting at the end of the line to keep me warm like a loving father does. The scarf not only kept me warm; it warmed my heart.”  

So many touching stories of how these gifts of love have changed lives and paved the way for Gospel conversations.

What beautiful children! What a powerful, tangible way to demonstrate the love of Jesus, to represent His care and concern for these little ones who may never even have heard His Name. How we loved that each box we would donate would contain His story and an invitation to personally know Him, the God Who rescues, the God Who is near. The God Who is good, great, gracious, and glorious. He is also generous.

My friend wanted to fill up ten more!

Later that week, I took a break from writing my blog and ran a couple of errands for my mother-in-law.  As I strolled through Walmart, I suddenly took notice of the cardboard bins filled with school supplies crowding the aisles. All on sale. Not really having a child heading back to school or even a little grandchild in need of these supplies, I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to these items. But my Father had. He somehow stopped me in my tracks and I immediately pictured a pile of empty green shoe boxes just waiting for such treasures in my fanciful head.

Incident number three.

I grabbed erasers, pencils, pencil sharpener, markers, tablets, pens, and more. How excited will a child somewhere be to get a bunch of these school supplies that many of our kids simply take for granted? That WE just take for granted?

Now I wanted to fill up ten myself!

So they are the three reasons I was compelled to write this blog this week.

Back to School stuff is on sale everywhere. Charming Shoe-y hasn’t even made his annual appearance at LFA yet to make his appeal. And I am not suggesting we need to compete with any other church. But I am proposing for you to get ahead of the game and begin now to collect necessary gifts for your boxes. Somehow money gets tighter and the days get busier in December--even though your compassionate hearts long to meet the needs of children beside your own.

Can I humbly suggest you spend a little now? And then each pay week, spend a little bit more? It will be wise and even fun to start now to plan a budget, to look for sales, to include your children in the process of shopping for a child somewhere who will benefit greatly from their own thoughtful sacrifice. Haven’t you always intended to do that? Watch the poignant testimonies online with your kids. Maybe let them contribute some money from their piggy banks. Pray together as a family for the child who is to receive their special gift.  Prayer is the best thing you can put in that box! What a beautiful family project! What an important lesson on generosity you all will learn! What a valuable insight into the heart of the Heavenly Father Who loves all the children of the world and wants them to come to know Him.

I don’t want this blog to be a page filler, an easily overlooked cheap advertisement or an emotional appeal to guilt you into a contribution. Rich and Barb don’t even know what I am writing about. Neither does Franklin Graham! I just want you to experience amazing joy and satisfaction. I long to encourage you, even prompt you, to self-check your heart and make sure yours is in tune with your Father’s. He is all about children. He wants them to come to Him. And I think this is but one pretty effective way for that to happen.

Won’t you consider filling a shoe box?

Or ten?

That will make Shoe-y smile for sure.

And a child (or ten!) on the other side of the world will too.

After all, it is August…

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.(1 John 316-18 ESV)

—Eileen Hill

There's Time

We are so very different. My whole life, she has done things I wouldn’t dream of doing.

And that day wasn’t any different.

My free-spirited big sister knelt by the granite stone and pulled a soggy note out of a sandwich bag. The bag had been shoved rather inconspicuously between two faded and tattered fake daffodils that stood like worn out sentries. It was a Memorial Day weekend, and we, laden with pungent and perky red geraniums, were dutifully making our annual pilgrimage to Chestnut Grove cemetery, to our parent’s gravesites. Despite my protests, my sis set down her plant and began to read out loud the much-too-personal letter she had “found.” Though the moisture of spring rain and early morning dew had blurred the ink, there was no mistaking the anguish penned so neatly on that single page.

A dear and precious loved one gone. Years of alienation and angry words wasted and regretted. Apologies. Brokenness. Grief. Declarations of affection. And finally, sad resignation that there had been no reconciliation and the torturous realization that it would never be.

There was no more time.

I felt horrible; we had violated something private and sacred. Hastily, my too-curious sister stuffed the sheet back into the sodden plastic. We looked at each other with tear-filled eyes, ashamed and silent, as we contemplated the heaviness and the profound truth of the moment, of the message we had read.

For the anonymous author, there was no more time to restore the broken relationship. There was no more time for anything with this person beneath the sod. No more time to laugh. No more time to cry. No more time to sing or dance or work or celebrate or visit or worship or pray or talk or play with that beloved. No more time to simply do life together.  

I have experienced that reality too many times.

I remember my niece’s funeral a few hot summers ago. Greg had the difficult privilege of officiating at her informal memorial service. Choking back his emotion, he lamented not having enough time with his cousin. Nearly the same age, the two had been very close all their growing up years. They had made different life choices along the road to adulthood, and their paths had diverged. “I always had in my mind that when life calmed down and we were old,” I remember Greg saying, “we would be sitting in rocking chairs on the porch, catching up, laughing, and enjoying each other like we always did.”

But there was no more time.

For me at age 17, there was no more time to tell my daddy how much I loved him. Neither did I later have more time to laugh with my wonderful neighbor. There was no more time to help and understand one of my oldest and dearest friends. There was no more time to learn from my wise brother-in-law. There was no more time to hold my sweet grandson.

Two weeks ago, I sat weeping in the familiar pew of my former church. We were attending the funeral of a very special friend, a precious lady who now was sitting at the feet of Jesus. We had visited, cooked, served, worshipped, prayed, chatted, hosted, mourned, and shared life for many years. But our paths also had diverged, and life was busy for both of us. It had been way too long since we had taken the time to connect. I was guilt-ridden and devastated. This was a woman I loved.

Again, there was no more time.

As I listened to the courageous husband’s beautiful eulogy and heard the hope-filled message of the pastor, my mind kept whispering to me. There’s no more time. You are too late to renew and enjoy that friendship.  Suddenly, I heard my Father’s voice of authority overriding the one in my head.

“There’s time.”

I was surprised. Almost immediately, I pictured in my head the awesome glories of heaven and there I was with Cookie, my friend, catching up! And we had time. We had all of eternity.

Now I am no theologian, and I can’t attest to the validity or the reliability of my imaginations or my day dreams. But I can tell you that my heaviness and shame disappeared in that very instant, and I began recalling and even yearning for the joys of heaven in a whole new way. Certainly, my focus there will be my King. Certainly, I will be singing praises and worshipping my God forever. But, thankfully, so will lots of people I love who have gone on ahead of me. What a precious, comforting thought!

I’ve often eagerly looked forward to a reunion with those God has called home before me conceptually. But imagining spending time with them? Catching up? Getting to perfectly love one another? To perfectly worship, serve, and obey our majestic Father together? Forever? How cool will that be! How beautiful.

I believe there will be time for that.

So I have been reminded once again: time is precious. My life here on earth is like vapor, like grass that quickly fades away. Is that a good reminder for you too?

Psalm 90:12 (NKJV) prompts each of us then to cry, “Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” Or as the Living Bible renders it, “Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.”

Ephesians 5:15 also has something to say to us. “So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise.”

I think we spend our days well, I think we are living wisely when we live our lives on Kingdom Mission. Our loving Father has equipped us and commissioned us to know Him and make Him known everywhere we go. He wants Heaven filled with our coworkers, our family, and our friends. And don’t we? Don’t we want them to join us in the joy of our Lord forever?

Let’s get out those invitations! Let’s support Camp Grace! Put up the antenna and throw out the bobber. Open your eyes and ears. Say yes. That’s how our panel last Sunday so plainly challenged us. Let’s not selfishly waste our limited time on our own selfish desires and comforts. Let’s make time for those we love and those we don’t. Let’s live for something bigger than us, something eternal. Let’s live to please our King!

There’s time for that.

After all, He doesn’t want anyone to be out of time.  

Nor should we….

—Eileen Hill

Little Things Matter

So I’m still pretty stuck on this hospitality theme that Pastor Greg broached a few Sundays ago in our One Another Series.

I think it’s because I needed a swift kick in the pants!

As I heard me speak about hospitality with Greg on the video clip during that message, sweet faces flashed before me of precious people who have graced my table, found refuge in my  home. What a privilege to serve and to love people God has placed in our story. Conversations. Tears. Laughter. Prayer. Life. What blessings!

My heart was heavy with the conviction of the Holy Spirit from this flood of memories and Greg’s words from God’s Word. 

I reminded myself how much I enjoy hospitality and serving others, why I think it is important to love people well, to make strangers friends.

Between caring for my elderly and vulnerable in-laws who live with us, navigating the never-ending Covid-19 restrictions, and enduring double knee replacements last year, I’ve had some undeniable and convenient excuses for putting hospitality in our home on the back burner.

Frankly, though, I think I’m just out of practice. And maybe I’ve gotten a little bit lazy. Comfortable. Complacent. Disobedient??

You see, I profoundly believe that hospitality isn’t just a nice idea or a helpful suggestion for believers in Jesus. It is a command, one Jesus Himself implied when lawyers questioned which commandment was the most important one. We now call it the Great Commandment.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and  first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:36-40 ESV)

Loving God with all we are is made visible, is demonstrated best, by loving others purposefully and sacrificially. He is our ultimate example of this kind of lifestyle. And it seems to me that loving others is inextricably linked to service. I believe loving our neighbors, near and far, loving people, requires hospitality, extending ourselves on their behalf whatever form that takes. 

The Apostle Paul’s words clearly mandate this. 

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. (1 Peter 4:8-10 ESV)

Commands are meant to be obeyed. So why have I become so negligent?

Well, I’d argue defensively in my flesh that I had some very good reasons for a while. But I don’t think those reasons totally let me off the hook. Lots of people have loved and served others well during quarantines. Or when they were caring for the elderly in their homes. Or when they were experiencing physical problems. Or during financial crises. Or when they were busy. Or when they found themselves in much more difficult circumstances than I have. Jesus did…

It just takes some new, out-of-the-box thinking and some creative, intentional, and innovative planning to extend hospitality when conditions aren’t great, when money is tight, when you aren’t a gourmet chef, when you are by nature shy, when the people you are to serve are difficult, when you can't do what you have always done.

Honestly, it just takes resolve. And maybe a new understanding. Maybe even a kick in the pants!

There isn't just a one-way-fits-all kind of hospitality as Charissa explained so well. It isn’t always BIG. 

Small things matter. A lot.

I think we often excuse ourselves from serving and loving others the way we should because of our own faulty definitions of hospitality. We make it all about a fancy, candlelight dinner, a 5-star overnight accommodation with a gourmet breakfast included, or a crazy-big, churchwide or neighborhood gala in our backyard with karaoke blaring across town. I have been guilty of making it only about these. And while it sometimes is a gigantic undertaking, I think, most often, it’s the small things we do everyday that best show our love to others. The kind things we say. The verse we share. It’s SEEING folks. It’s being a good neighbor, even to those who are not necessarily living in close proximity to us, and even to the ones who don’t return our garden tools!

Or our friendship. 

It is a mindset that can change the world.

But it seems most of us have blind spots when it comes to recognizing just what we DO have to offer others, what we can really do for them. Instead of watching Monday night football alone, invite someone over. Instead of eating all the cookies you just baked, send some over to a neighbor. Take time to chat over the fence. Drop a card in the mail to someone who had a recent health scare. Have a playdate in the park and bring some juice boxes and Cheetos. And wipes! I had a wonderful neighbor who picked up trash along our road every Saturday. How thoughtful!

It’s important to determine how we can make a difference in the lives of others. It may not seem like a lot, but when we generously offer them what we have, “something sacred happens. God uses the small things we bring to him and multiplies them into a miracle in someone else's life.”

I’m impressed with a familiar story (surprise!) told in each of the Gospels about a time when Jesus wanted to extend hospitality in far more difficult circumstances than I have ever experienced in my quest to be obedient to the hospitality command. And He uses a small boy, one so insignificant that we never even know his name! But he stands up in a group of 5000 men and gives what he has. “Then a miracle takes place. His little effort combines with God’s power and everything changes.” I found these quotes and a telling of this event in a book called, The Art of Neighboring by Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon, BakerBooks, 2012, pp.87-89. It’s well worth the read! 

It’s getting late, and thousands of people have hung around all day to listen to Jesus preach. But it’s becoming clear that all of these people didn’t plan ahead. They need to eat but they are miles from civilization. Jesus turns to his disciples and tells them to find something for the crowd for dinner. But the disciples have no way of providing a meal for the crowd. One of the disciples, Philip, calculates what it would cost–more than a year’s salary, way more than they can afford. Clearly the disciples are way over their heads with the challenge at hand. What is Jesus expecting? He's not serious, right?

When we start to take the Great Commandment literally, we realize we don’t have what it takes. We don't have enough time, even though we prioritize. We aren’t great at remembering names, even though we write them down and try to remember. We don’t  love enough, even though we are trying to be like Jesus. We feel as though we are being asked to manage an impossible task–loving our neighbors. Do our small efforts add up to anything? Let’s get back to our story.

As the disciples are about to give up, something outlandish happens. “Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. ‘Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?’” (John 6:8-9)

Andrew knows the little boy’s lunch would feed only a few of the people. Why would he even offer something so ridiculous? First of all, it’s rude. You shouldn't take food from little children. Second, it’s silly. What good could it possibly accomplish? What was Andrew thinking? Apparently Andrew knew something we should all remember: small sacrifices can lead to a miracle. When you give what you have, even if it’s minute, God can make a miracle. He can work with very little and turn it into something that no one could have imagined.

 As the passage continues, Jesus prays for the food. Then he breaks up this kid’s lunch and hands it out to the disciples. He tells them to start distributing it–somehow there is enough to feed the crowd.

Now here’s an interesting question: When did the food multiply?…I think that the miracle happened in the hands of the disciples. As they handed out the bread and fish, it was miraculously replaced in their baskets. Every time they gave away some food, they looked down into the basket, only to find it full again. The miracle happened as they participated in giving the food away. The food multiplied in their hands. 

Can you imagine being a part of something like this? It must have been amazing, not only for the disciples but for the little boy as well. Suddenly he is a hero. He gives up his lunch, and a bunch of adults get to participate in a miracle. I doubt he ever imagined his day would turn out like that. 

When you give away what you have, Jesus will give you more to give. Even if what you have isn’t enough to solve the whole problem, just do what you can in the moment–give it anyway. Trust that God will fill you up with enough to supply the need that’s right in front of you, and assume he will do it again for the next need as well. If you don’t give, you don’t get a chance to see God do a miracle. 

Give Him what you have, no matter how small or foolish or unusable it seems. There are people out there He longs to love and care for through YOU. Maybe not 5000 of them at once, but maybe there are! What an incredible thought! What an amazing privilege! He still does miracles.

Maybe for this season of my life, I can’t do what I used to do. So maybe I need to figure out what I can do, even if it seems so very small and insignificant. My definition of what hospitaIity looks like right now may need a little tweaking. God wants me to love and serve others to demonstrate my love for Him and HIS love for them. I can do that. I can meet up for coffee and offer encouragement. Send a card. Text a verse. Share a casserole. Give a ride. Pray over the phone. I can make my mother-in-law queen of our home. I must remind myself that it's often the small moments, the little things, that count.

Little things matter. A lot.

It’s simple: Give the little you have and are and watch God do a miracle.

Those old enemies may become friends, and strangers may become Family!

And God the Father will smile. A lot.

—Eileen Hill

Too…WHAT?

Do you read The Daily Bread? It’s the free quarterly devotional publication in the racks out in the foyer and café at Living Faith. I’ve enjoyed reading it each day since I was young.

A week or so ago, one title caught my eye and I found myself musing over the paragraphs beneath it: String Too Short to Use. Did you read it? Apparently a frugal, elderly aunt of the writer’s had recently passed away. Her grieving extended family was tasked with disposing of all her earthly treasures. In the process, her amused nieces discovered a little bag filled with a variety of tiny pieces of string. They laughed in delight as they read its carefully scrawled label, “String too short to use.”

What?? Why would anyone save something even they deemed unusable? Why not just toss those bits of cord right in the rubbish can? It’s STRING, for heaven’s sake!!

So I started thinking about that.

 A lot.

I realized that sometimes I feel just like a tiny, useless snip of Auntie’s string. I just don’t feel very valuable or important or needed. But I really don’t want to be trashed or bagged up and set aside either. Have you ever felt that way too?

I am so very thankful it is my Father who assesses what to do with me, not dear, departed Auntie.  

Because, unlike Auntie, my merciful Father doesn’t look at me and, seeing all my many shortcomings, toss me aside in distain to be forgotten. While the Aunt saves old string pieces, the Father saves me—regardless of my size, background, weaknesses, failures, and flaws. And He does it with a glorious purpose in mind, one He has planned just for me.

Then He labels me usable!

You too.

You see, He made each of us exactly how He wanted us to be. Short. Tall. Slight. Husky. Male. Female. Freckled. Dark. Light. Asian. Indian. Graceful. Outgoing. Quiet. The Psalmist beautifully expresses this in Psalm 139:13-18. This is the way The Message reads.

Oh, yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. I thank you, High God - you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration - what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day. Your thoughts - how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them! I couldn't even begin to count them - any more than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!

God designed and created us. But He knew we would mess up. From the beginning, He set in motion the plan to save us from our sin and condemnation—for a purpose. I love how Paul describes it in Ephesians 2:8-10. Again, I am referencing The Message in its simplicity.

Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Saved. Useable.

Not worthless scraps of string in a drawer. Not rejected pieces of unloved humanity.

Is that hard for you to believe? That you were formed by God Himself, made in His very image, and then, by His grace through the selfless sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, rescued from your mess, guilt, shame, and hopeless condition? That He longs to use you for His grand Kingdom purposes, that it was His plan all along?

It really is amazing.

Especially when you, like me, can think of dozens of others who are so much smarter, so much more attractive, so much better educated, so much stronger, so much more confident, so better qualified, so much more experienced, so beautifully gifted, so better connected, so much taller…and so better fit to be useful to God.

But God doesn’t measure usefulness the way we do. Good thing for us. It seems He specializes in revealing His power and character, in making Himself known and His message heard through people who are fragile, weak, and frail. The Bible is full of examples of this. Just think about it for a minute. So many flawed heroes in the pages of Scripture.

Moses didn’t speak well. Abraham was old. Sarah was impatient. Jacob was a deceiver. Jonah ran from God. David had an affair. Gideon was insecure. Thomas was a doubter. Peter had a temper. Martha was jealous. Timothy was timid, possibly sickly. Paul was a murderer. Lazarus was dead…

And Zaccheus was short! But not too short for God to use.

All our favorite Bible characters were just ordinary people that had one thing in common. They were all imperfect, fallen, weak humans. Yet God used every single one of them in His story. He purposely chooses to use pathetic people like us for His glorious plans, His plans for us to know Him and make Him known, for us to make much of Him. Check out 1 Corinthians 1:26-30.

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.

If your resume is sketchy, your skills unimpressive, and your wisdom below average, don’t fret. God can use even you. And me. God wants to use any of us who look away from our own prideful self-sufficiency or our crippling, perceived inadequacies and fix our eyes on His ALL-sufficiency in every aspect of life. God uses all those who humble themselves before the cross, boasting only in Him—His strength, His wisdom, His righteousness, His accomplishment.

Let’s embrace our weaknesses, then, so that the power of Christ may rest upon us, revealing God’s surpassing greatness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

That’s our purpose.

And none of us is too short—or too tall—to do that.

In fact, we are not too ANYTHING!

Our dear Father has labeled us USEABLE.

—Eileen Hill

Home for Easter

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.  (1 Peter 3:18 NIV)

In Grace for the Moment, Volume 2, 110, Max Lucado writes this.

One of the reference points of London is the Charing Cross. It is near the geographical center of the city and serves as a navigational tool for those confused by the streets.

A little girl was lost in the great city. A policeman found her. Between sobs and tears, she explained she didn’t know her way home. He asked her if she knew her address. She didn’t. He asked her phone number; she didn’t know that either. But when he asked her what she knew, suddenly her face lit up.

“I know the Cross,” she said. “Show me the Cross and I can find my way home from there.”

So can you. Keep a clear vision of the cross on your horizon and you can find your way home.

Home where your Father lives. Home where you are loved, protected, and safe. Home where you belong.

Jesus died an excruciating, torturous death on the Roman cross for you on that Good Friday more than two thousand years ago—so you can be reunited with your loving Father. So that you can go home. Doesn’t that thrill you? Humble you? Mystify you?

Home. This side of the fall, everyone on this spinning planet yearns for, longs for home. We imagine it to be a place of rest and stability, the familiar residence where we fit in. But how often is home an empty illusion void of the peace we so desperately seek?

Yanked from God, not one of us truly belongs here. Our frustrated desires to be with Him leave us wandering through life, lost and confused like the little British child in the story.

We want to be home. We long to be home.

Kathryn Butler, “Wanderers on the Earth,” from Desiring God’s website, explains it so well.

Our heritage as nomads began when Adam and Eve, trembling, skulked away from the garden with their eyes averted from God (Genesis 3:21-24). Our displacement has continued since then, driving us into shackles (Deuteronomy 6:21), into the wilderness (Numbers 32:13), into a constant restlessness as we strive to become whole again. To be gathered and led, finally, completely, by the patient, loving arms of the good shepherd (Zechariah 10:2; John 10:11).

In the meantime, our souls stir in discontent. Restlessness grips our bones. “How lovely is your dwelling place O Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God” (Psalm 84:1-2). While we seek, strive, and pine for belonging, we know the rust-colored roads and white clapboard are only shadows of the home for which we all yearn.

Yet even in our most desperate longing, we have hope. As C.S. Lewis writes, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Mere Christianity, 138). While photographs grow yellow and roots from trees push through the decaying sidewalk, we remain God’s beloved. We bear his image (Genesis 1:27). He knows every wind-torn hair upon our heads (Matthew 10:30). Christ offers us, at long last, the promise of home, and peace, and belonging for which we all thirst (Psalm 42:1 Matthew 11:28). While we struggle through cultures and memory to discern our place, we cling to the hope that this sojourn on earth is transient. As Paul writes, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:1-2).

We serve a God who hears our cries, who knows the fracturing of our hearts as we wander the earth. Through Christ’s sacrifice, he welcomes us into respite (Psalm 107:4-7). As the Father embraces his prodigal son, so God rushes to us with open arms, welcoming us to his table, inviting us to enjoy the communion possible only through the healing power of redemption (Luke 15:20)—through the forgiveness of our sins, which at long last restores us to God and makes all things new (Revelation 21:5).

In Christ, we find belonging. Through him we revel in a joy without boundaries, a joy that never fades, a joy whose walls will never crumble to dust. As the road unwinds, Christ’s resurrection draws us into the perfect communion for which our souls ache. He restores us. He renews us. He finally, gently pulls us weary and dust-covered from our wanderings, and at last calls us home.

So let’s keep a clear vision of the cross.

This Holy Week let’s be filled with awe and wonder and gratitude for our Savior whose body was broken and bruised there on that cross, whose blood was so willingly poured out to cover our sins, the innocent for the guilty. His selfless sacrifice amazingly provides the forgiveness we need and reestablishes our precious relationship with God.

We are no longer lost!

Yes, now we can find our way home. We can be with our loving and merciful Father forever. Believe that with all your heart, dear friends.  

We can finally be where we truly belong.

—Eileen Hill

Fight the Foxes!

The other Wednesday evening at Open Door, Angelo read some verses from the Song of Songs. This was one of them.

Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom. (Song of Songs 2:15 ESV)

Immediately, a long-forgotten memory from my childhood popped into my mind. It was a brisk and blustery fall afternoon. Daddy loaded us in the old Ford for a pleasant ride through the countryside to enjoy the changing, colorful leaves of autumn. That day, he made a point of traveling a backroad that wound its way to a farm near Palatine, the home of a friend. There on the corner, hanging by their bushy tails, was a string of dead red foxes swaying in the breeze, proud trophies from the first day of hunting season. I don’t know if this part of my recollection has been exaggerated in my quite lively imagination or if this is the truth, but I recall it being a horribly bloody and unsettling scene. I hated to look at the lifeless, dripping bodies, yet I simply couldn’t turn away.

It was a striking picture of death.

This picture of gory foxes in a row is often what I think about, see in my mind’s eye, when I hear the word foxes. And in the context of the verse Angelo read, I have an inkling of why that’s okay. It seems these pesky, little foxes, the size of a small dog, can wreak havoc in our beautiful, thriving gardens or vineyards if we are not watchful and proactive in getting rid of them. Yes, they do chew and eat the new shoots on the vine and even the tasty fruit it produces, grapes included. Yes, they burrow and dig, destroying roots in their search for grubs and other food, causing the vines to wither and become unproductive. Though they are not usually regarded as dangerous, little foxes are capable of terribly big damage.

So what does it all mean to me today? To us?

In the context, two lovers are speaking intimate words of passionate desire for one another, when, out of nowhere it seems to me, this verse pops up. Could it be they understood that even a beautiful, fresh, and growing relationship, a relationship that is healthy and delightfully blooming, can suffer attack and potentially be ruined by “little foxes,” the kinds of problems or sins which can disturb or destroy good relationships? They were wise if that’s what they were thinking. Way ahead of most of us, I’m afraid.

Because we should think this way too.

It isn’t always BIG things that cause us the most trouble in our relationships. Often we are able to see those huge, obvious trouble-makers coming at us and have time to put up our defenses, cry for help, polish our armor and wage war. But It’s the little things that creep, unnoticed, into our unprotected relationships that can cause much grief and pain. Even ruin. And unlike the sweet lovers in the Songs, we aren’t even worried about them. We are oblivious. Lazy. Unconcerned. Busy elsewhere. Unprepared. Something…

Like me, if you think about it, I’m guessing you can identify many “little foxes” that have quite successfully intruded upon our relationships and, at the very least, left behind a mess.  Unchecked, they even can grow into huge and hungry foxes that want to ultimately destroy our gardens. These include foxes like anger, fear, passivity, stubbornness, control, selfishness, busyness, pride, bad habits, unrealistic expectations, poor communication, discourtesy, complacency, jealousy, lust, greed, bitterness, dishonesty, conflicting agendas, and on and on their number goes.

Scripture specifically identifies a little tongue (James 3:5), a little folly (Ecclesiastes 10:1), and a little sleep (Proverbs 24:33,34) as a few more examples of small things that cause extensive damage in relational gardens. None of these should be invading our homes; they shouldn’t be digging their way into our marriages, devouring what once was blooming and beautiful, leaving behind ruined vines. Ruined fruit. Ruined relationships. Ruined marriages. Ruined lives.

Hudson Taylor said it this way.

“The enemies may be small, but the mischief done great…And how numerous the little foxes are! Little compromises with the world; disobedience to the still small voice in little things; little indulgences of the flesh to the neglect of duty; little strokes of policy; doing evil in the little things that good may come and the beauty, and the fruitfulness of the vine are sacrificed!” 

We must constantly be on the lookout for the invaders. Be vigilant! Once we identify them and take them seriously as a threat, recognize them as sin and repent, we must navigate forgiveness between us. After that, the key is teamwork. The couple must work together to battle the problem. One person can’t carry the entire responsibility for protecting against the sinfulness that corrupts a marriage. Each must do his or her part. The garden of marriage has tender grapes; the relationship with our spouse is precious and vulnerable. We must work together to guard and defend it no matter what the cost. Our love for each other, our attitude toward each other, the care, devotion, grace, respect, forgiveness, and patience we extend to our mates, all demonstrate our commitment to fight and win against the enemy who is out to get us. A peaceful and blossoming marriage is a wonderful and mysterious testimony to a world who is always watching. It points to the faithful, unconditional love Christ Himself has for His bride, the church.

The weekend after the Wednesday night I began to think about these destructive little foxes happened to be our Marriage Retreat. While these little critters are out to obliterate any relationship, whether Songs is a picture of lovers or Christ and His church, I became laser-focused particularly on marriage relationships. I earnestly began to pray God wouldn’t allow foxes or anything else to deter our couples from coming to hear what He had to say to each of them at the retreat. I prayed that they would learn how to recognize and battle the insidious, relentless “foxes” in their gardens. I believe He graciously answered my requests.

At the end of the retreat, I once again prayed fervently over the couples, imploring them to identify and destroy the “little foxes” that have, uninvited and unawares, stolen into their marriages with evil intent. I prayed that there would be an imaginary pile of messy and bloody carcasses left behind in our meeting room when the session ended.

It was beautiful to see the couples around the room, some in tears, heads together, hands interlocked, crying out to God for their relationships.

Putting foxes to death.

And do you know how God graciously affirmed His precious couples on the ride home that lovely Sunday afternoon?

There was a very dead red fox sprawled out on the side of the highway as a poignant, symbolic reminder of what they had done!!

Do you, too, want to pile up some fox bodies? Do you want to protect your relationships at home, at work, at church?

Catch those little guys while you can.

Fight…and win!

—Eileen Hill

Sally's Treasure

Our recent focus here at LFA on the importance of the Presence of the Holy Spirit reminded me, of course, of a powerful story that long ago helped me in my understanding of Who He is and what He does. And how I need Him. It is from The Secret by Bill Bright and begins with a quote by Thomas Arnold.

“He who does not know God the Holy Spirit does not know God at all.”

Please read on.

Sally was almost penniless.  When her husband Jeb died years before, his life insurance had paid off the mortgage, but that was about it.

Now the house was deteriorating around her. The car had been junked long ago when she couldn’t keep up with the repair and insurance bills. She got by on just a few dollars each week for groceries, and when the electric bill got too high, she decided to live by Coleman stove and candlelight.

So Sally rarely left home. How could she when everything cost money? Coffee at the café was eighty-five cents. Even with her senior citizen’s discount, movies cost $3 (The book was published in 1989—miss those prices!). A walk to the park required shoes, and Sally’s only remaining pair were clinging together by a few bits of thread.

So day after day, Sally stayed at home and creaked back and forth in her rocking chair. Life was supposed to be better than this, she thought. It started out so great. So full of promise. But now it’s passed me by. 

And so she lived—just barely lived—for years. Destitute. Lonely. Defeated. Until one day, when an old acquaintance from across the country remembered her childhood friend and decided to look her up.

Miriam was heartbroken when she saw Sally’s living conditions. She decided to stay a few days to try to encourage her friend and help straighten up the house.

And in the course of helping her old friend, Miriam made a startling discovery.

Tucked away in the file drawer of Jeb’s old roll-top desk was a folder labeled “FOR SALLY.” Inside, Miriam found an old bank savings book. The last entry had been made twenty-two years earlier, just before Jeb had died. The bank book indicated a balance of $87,000.

But that wasn’t all. The folder also contained a yellowed envelope, sealed and inscribed with Jeb’s handwriting:

To Sally, With Love Forever

“Do you know what this is?” Miriam asked.

Sally searched her memory. She remembered the last days of her beloved husband, the tender words that had passed between them as they realized that the end was near.

Then the memory hit her. In the grief and heartache of the days and months following Jeb’s death, she had forgotten one of the things he had said: “When I’m gone…a file for you…in my desk. Important.”

Now, as Miriam watched, Sally opened the envelope carefully. Inside was a single folded page and a key. Sally began to read:

My Dearest Love—

My time with you draws short, but I want you to know that I have provided everything you will need once I am gone. Check the bank book in this file. Then take this key to the bank with you. In loving remembrance of me please enjoy life to the full!

With love forever, 

Jeb

Sally and Miriam discovered that the key was to a safety deposit box at the bank. As they lifted the metal lid, their eyes widened as they discovered several bundles of cash totaling $32,000, a pile of stock certificates, and three folders of rare coins.

That afternoon a stockbroker informed them that the stock certificates were worth $550,000 on the current market. A rare coin dealer appraised the coin collection at $447,000. The bank calculated twenty-two years’ interest on the savings account, which brought its total from $87,000 to more than $254,000. All told, Sally was worth more than $883,000! She had been living in misery and despair when more money than she would ever need had been available to her all along.

Doesn’t this story make you sad for Sally? She is a vivid illustration of the bittersweet way in which many Christians also live. Although God has promised us all the strength and help we will ever need, many of us try to “go it alone” because we are unaware of the boundless resources God has provided in the person of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we live like Sally—unfulfilled, fruitless, and spiritually malnourished—while the key to joy and abundance is within our grasp.

Destitute. Lonely. Defeated. Have you been there too?

Maybe it’s time to really discover the treasure inside you. Study and understand the Bible’s basic teaching about the Holy Spirit and then invite Him to release His power in your life each day. He is a person. He speaks (Acts 13:2 NAS). He teaches (John 14:26 NAS). He guides (John 16:13). He convicts (John 16:7-8 NAS). He commands. (Acts 8:29 NAS). He helps (Romans 8:26 NAS). He comforts: (John 14:16 KJV). He has been called alongside the Christian as a companion, comforter, helper and one who energizes, strengthens and empowers. Amazing! We as believers get to experience unprecedented joy and personal fulfillment. More than that, our verbal and nonverbal witness for Jesus Christ would sweep the world!

Selfish me would settle for it to at least sweep Pittsgrove!

The Holy Spirit’s purpose is to glorify Christ, and He does so by empowering and enabling you and me to glorify God by the way we live. His resources are at our disposal. If we do not appropriate them, we can only live like poor Sally, struggling through a meager existence when vast riches are at our command.

But when we give the Holy Spirit control of our lives, the spiritual bank vault opens wide. The Lord God Almighty gives us everything we need to honor Him and experience life to the full, for “out of his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you the mighty inner strengthening of his Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 3:16).

Look out, world…

— Eileen Hill

The Top of the Christmas List

I am a serial list maker.

At any given point in time, I will have a dozen scrawled lists wadded up in my purse. And ten more scattered by my chair or stuffed in any available orifice in my car.

I love them. I live by them. I need them.

So Christmas is especially fun for me. Lists of seasonal activities to get on the calendar. Lists of chores to accomplish in December. Lists of party foods and groceries to buy. Lists of Pinterest ideas to try. Lists of recipes to find. Lists of Hallmark movies to watch. Lists of Christmas cards to send. You get the idea.

But best of all is the Christmas gift list, quite necessary for a Grammy with more than a few grandchildren who need the perfect gift. Like Old Saint Nick, from Thanksgiving on, I’m making my lists and checking them twice…and many more times after that!

So, the other evening, perusing one of my master copies, I took out my marker and began checking off one name after another.  Check. Check. Check. I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Gift Shopping Mission nearly accomplished, and it wasn’t even Christmas Eve.

From out of nowhere, I heard my younger me singing in a long-ago Christmas program in the magical, darkened and decorated little church of my childhood.

“What can I give Jesus? I want to do my part.

What can I give Jesus? The love of all my heart.

My hands and feet. My money too. My praises and my songs.

I’ll give them all to Jesus for all to Him belongs.”

Memories flooded over me and tears stung my eyes. That mini-Eileen meant every word she sang, ever-so-slightly off key, that distant night. Like the mythical Little Drummer Boy, she knelt at the manger, staring with adoration and wonder at the babe she already knew as her Savior, and anguished over what she, a shy, empty-handed child, could possibly give Him, the One she loved so very much.

She didn’t even have a drum, so she lisped Him a song the very best she knew how.

I thought about that night and the words of that sweet song and wondered at how I so simply resolved the question back then. But did I ponder what else I could give Him? Besides my praises and my songs, the lyrics suggested I give Jesus my hands, feet, money, and the love of my heart. What would that look like?

I probably made a list!

1.    Dry the dishes and pull weeds. Hands.

2.    Run to Dodge’s Market for Mommy. Feet.

3.    Empty my piggy bank and send my coins to India. Money.

4.    Tell Jesus I love Him every day. Heart.

Check. Check. Check.

There were lots of tasks for a willing and obedient little girl to accomplish to show Jesus her love and gratitude. Especially at Christmas.

And I’m sure He smiled.

And aren’t there lots of tasks for willing and obedient big girls too? Certainly. But I’ve come to believe that my good works, as well-intentioned as they are, aren’t the very best gift I can offer my King.

Will I kneel at the manger and just adore Him?

As a much older and hopefully wiser girl, I realize that my God isn’t just asking me to legalistically check things off some grand, cosmic TO DO list so I can earn His attention and His favor—and maybe even my salvation.

What He really wants, the best gift I can offer Him, is the affection of my whole heart, the inner control center of ME. Essentially, I wrap myself up and lay me at His feet. Every single day. Not just at Christmas.

I then, out of loving surrender, live my life, plan my days, and make my lists, in pursuit of His Kingdom’s priorities and purposes. Because I love Him so much, I want to honor Him in everything, so I will gladly do what He wants (my hands!) anywhere I go (my feet!) and use my resources to bless others as I have been so richly blessed (my money!) by Him. And my lips will suddenly, uncontrollably burst forth in praise and song. Still a bit flat. But it all flows from my heart that is His, over-flowing with His gracious and unmerited love, love that He wants to spill out to others through me. And not just at Christmas.

How can we NOT fall at the manger and worship Him? How can we NOT give Him our whole hearts? How can we NOT place Him at the top of our Christmas Gift lists?

So what will you give Jesus? Your whole heart and all that goes with it?

I know it will make Him smile.

Even if your song is a little off-key.

—Eileen Hill

An Unexpected Gift

I am still stuck on generosity.

Maybe it’s because the India Team just left for Omie’s Home.

Maybe it's because Thanksgiving is just around the corner.

Maybe it’s because I still have a story to tell you about generous giving and living.

I hope you will get all these connections after you read on.

It was 8 years ago and I was slowly driving to work, carefully rehearsing in my mind just what I would say to the ladies I cared for. I knew they weren’t going to be happy.

At church the day before, Dot Marketto had approached me with her charming little smile and informed me she desperately needed me to accompany her to India in a few weeks. She only had one other person signed on to go; she needed more help or she would have to cancel her trip. Now Dot can be quite persuasive indeed, but so can the Holy Spirit nudging me deep inside. I told Dot I would pray about it, discuss it with Kenny, and get back to her the next day.

In the car on our way home from church, before I even finished telling my faith-filled, missions-minded husband about my conversation with Dot, he was encouraging me to go. But I protested, listing all my concerns, my hesitations. I would have to quickly obtain a visa and get some dreaded shots. Nearly impossible, anxiously feared. I would have to take off a lot of work. Not easy for a self-employed caregiver whose clients are quite dependent. I would miss Thanksgiving with my family. Bummer. And it cost $3000!! How on earth could I raise that much money in just a couple of weeks? And just who could I ask to support my last-minute trip? We didn’t have it ourselves. That alone seemed to make the trip unreasonable.

So I shook my head. Kenny nodded his. I called Dot.

I would proceed with joining her small team and asked her to pray that all the apparent obstacles to my “yes” would be removed by my Good and Generous Father if this trip was His plan for me. I needed to know.

Then I had to face my ladies. I dreaded the conversation I would have to have.

The morning dragged as I busied myself with my usual tasks. Lunchtime would be the best opportunity to explain my plans to go to India. So, over our tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, I broke my news. It went much worse than I had anticipated. One of the dear ladies simply cried and the other harshly lashed out at me. Why would I go to such a place and endanger myself? Weren’t there needs here in the United States? Why would Kenny allow me to go? How could I consider leaving my family for Thanksgiving? How could they, my ladies, manage without me? Did I care more for children I hadn’t even met than I did for them? It was hard. My heart was torn.

When I got ready to leave them in the late afternoon, my lady friend who had cried at my plans followed me onto the porch in her wheelchair. She pulled an envelope addressed to me from under her sweater. “This is for you,” she whispered, cautiously looking over her shoulder. “You do so much for us. I went to the bank on Friday and took out some money to give you to help you replace the rug in your bedroom that was ruined when your dear mama lived with you. I know that is the project you are saving your money for. But you can always get a new rug, Eileen, but you can’t always obey God and go on a trip to India to love people who need to know Him. Just don’t tell anybody!”

Ooops! I just told YOU! Will you keep our secret?

I hugged my generous friend, tears running down my cheeks, and climbed in my car. Relief and peace flooded over me. This had been a big hurdle for me, a big condition for me being able to go on to India with a clear conscience. I felt I more than received her permission to take time off; I had her blessing! I knew she would and could influence and convince my other more suspicious friend that they could do without me for a while.

I called Kenny to say I was on my way home and related my clandestine meeting by the back door. My heart was overflowing with gratitude. But, practical as always, Kenny interrupted me and asked me how much money was in the bank envelope she had slipped me. I hadn’t even given it a thought. I was still focusing on and rejoicing that she had so kindly released me to go, giving me the confirmation I needed. “You knucklehead,” he laughed. “Pull over and count the money!”

On the side of the road, colorful fall leaves cascading over my car, I incredulously began to count crisp $100 bills out loud in a very shaky voice. Thirty of them! Yes, you got it. Thirty! $3000. Exactly what I needed for the trip.

I had never told my benefactor the cost of my trip. I hadn’t even mentioned my concern for fund raising. When she visited the bank days earlier, she had no idea I was going anywhere. But my generous Father did. It was He who prompted her love and generosity toward me for one purpose that He had all along planned for another. Not only were my needs totally met, but He confirmed my desire to go with Dot. There was no doubt. Isn’t that just like our awesome God?

And it was, in part, all due to the generosity of one elderly lady who responded to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, the very same Spirit of God Who had prompted me to go to an orphanage and leper colony thousands of miles from Elmer, New Jersey, and love generously in the name of Jesus.

Generous people beautifully reflect the character and the heart of our God. Isn’t that what all His children really want to do, ought to do? Make much of Him? Make Him known for Who He really is? And if living and loving generously accomplishes that amazing purpose, let’s all sign on today! It’s a very good time of year to do so.

Let’s look around our neighborhoods, our places of work, our families, our church and listen to the Holy Spirit prompting us to be generous with our friendship, our hospitality, our free time, our love, our forgiveness, our encouragement, our resources, our talents, and yes, our money too. Needs and brokenness abound. We won’t have to search long and hard.

Let’s not let this Thanksgiving season go by without purposefully and generously blessing someone with an unexpected gift of some kind. Won’t you think about it? Dot’s team is at it right now.

I guarantee you will get more out of it than they will, a very unexpected gift to yourself.

And more than that, it will be a special gift to our loving and generous God Who will get the praise He deserves and the honor due His Name.

Believe me, it doesn’t have to cost you $3000. But it might…

Riding in Style

Blame Pastor Greg for this one. This blog is entirely his fault…I simply can’t resist the invitation to tell a story. Even one I’ve told before.

For a couple of weeks, Greg has asked us to share how God is blessing others through us and/or how God is blessing us through others. How can any of us be quiet? Sharing our stories multiplies praise to our very generous and deserving Father. And hasn’t He done so very much in our lives?

Several years ago, for a lot of reasons, Kenny and I were in an overwhelming financial mess. We had no idea what to do except cry out to our Father in heaven for help, for direction, for hope. As we struggled through each endless day, it seemed our situation got worse and worse. Even the car we were driving was leased and the lease was up. We would have to rely on Kenny’s vintage pickup to get around.

Now that doesn’t sound like a bad plan at all…except my aging Mama with Alzheimer’s lived with us. She just couldn’t easily get in and out of that vehicle. It was quite a comical adventure hoisting her up and in or carefully lowering her out over the running boards. We petitioned our Father for help. We needed a better way to convey Mama comfortably and safely to her doctor’s appointments and church.

So God impressed on Kenny’s heart to call each of our three children to privately  join us in prayer for a car suitable for Mom Mom’s transport. During the conversation with our oldest son, KJ, he asked how much money we wanted to spend on the car we needed. Without hesitation, Kenny responded, “None.” I think he surprised all three of us with that answer. He had decided to trust God fully. What a step of faith! Me? Not so much. I was shocked, but his bold declaration jump-started my mustard seed sized faith into action.

The very next day, KJ called us back with an incredible story. An associate pastor at a church in North Carolina, he had gone into his office early that morning and was greeted by the church’s elderly secretary. She posed an unbelievable question. “Do you know anybody who needs a car?”

Did he ever!!

This dear lady’s son had a car dealership and kept his mama in reliable used vehicles, upgrading her every few years. He had a newer model ready for her use and told her to find someone who needed her old one, a car literally only driven to church on Sundays (and a few other days) by a little, old lady. It had been well maintained and had very low mileage. She was excited and blessed to give it to us, she said. SHE was blessed??  Isn’t that just so like God?

And it was a Cadillac! Mama was to ride in style with comfortable, heated front seats. It was easily accessible for her too. All because of a very generous Southern lady and her son who were obedient to the prompting of their incredibly generous God who desired to meet the urgent need of this humbled Northern lady and her precious mom.

We had that classic car a long time and were appreciative every single day. Every time we sat in it, we were reminded of the goodness and generosity of our Father. And a mother and son we never met face to face.

We were so very grateful.

Thinking about it all these years later, with a lump in my throat and my eyes misting over, I still am grateful. My heart is filled with thanksgiving and praise to God once more for the blessing of that big, old boat of a car.

And that’s what generosity does. For the giver and the beneficiary.

But most importantly, the Giver of all good gifts, our generous and loving God receives the honor and glory due Him.

“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

 Matthew 5:48 (The Message)

—Eileen Hill

Keep Out...Please!

It’s kind of our thing.

Both of us in our respective lounge chairs, kicked back, watching one of our shows in our basement family room. I am in my nightgown, snuggled up in my favorite, soft blanket. Our snack trays are littered with my jug of ice water and a wide assortment of goodies, healthy and otherwise.

And it’s late afternoon, early evening. Kenny’s finished work for the day and we are chilling, deciding when and if we want to scrounge up some dinner. Since my total knee replacements this summer, there have been some mighty slim pickings around here.

Then we hear footsteps in the kitchen and our basement door opens. We watch as unfamiliar boots descend into our private sanctuary. “Um, hi,” the stranger mumbles, embarrassed. “I’m your new bug guy.”

Then we remember the sign.

Plastered on our back door is a note card that reads, “Please come right in…thanks!” I had taped it up after my second surgery so I wouldn’t have to get up and answer the door for the nurse, physical therapist, and anybody else dropping by.

I just didn’t mean the exterminator.

Funny. We have had uninvited guests before. Bats, mice, flying squirrels, snakes…ah, the joys of living in the woods with all the critters. We even had a burglar kick in our deck door and rob us blind a few years back. How violated and vulnerable we felt! There is something deeply disturbing and unsettling when the safety, comfort, and privacy of your home is suddenly compromised, shattered.

Even by a bug guy just doing his job.

So I have been thinking about this a lot. I don’t want unexpected or uninvited visitors in my home.

Nor my heart.

But I’m pretty sure there are any number of things just lurking nearby, waiting for the door to open up a tiny crack.

In Genesis, I am reminded of these verses.

“The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry and why has your face fallen. If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.’” (Genesis 4:6-7)

The context of the bigger story here is that God has accepted Abel’s sacrifice but rejected his twin brother Cain’s sacrifice. Cain is furious so God mercifully addresses him, offering him a chance to do things “well.” He presents Cain with the choice to surrender his anger, repent of his wrong attitude, and get his heart right with God. Or he could let sin get the better of him. Cain refuses to listen to God’s gracious words of caution and allows the wickedness of anger crouching at his door to pounce on him, become his master, and rule over him. In a jealous rage, Cain kills his brother. What power sin has!

I think it would be wise for us to take notice.

I am of the scary opinion that sin is always crouching at my door, ready to spring like a hungry killer, an uninvited guest, ready to move in and take over. I am aware of the obvious sins; I keep the door barred and locked tightly against these dark enemies that lure and coax me to lie, steal, slay, cheat, betray, hate, envy, abandon, mistreat, control, and destroy. I fight and I flee with the Spirit’s necessary and inexhaustible strength and insight. When I struggle, I repent of my failure to obey and my wrong attitude. I turn my heart back to my forgiving Father.

But I am afraid there are less recognizable sins that are crouching outside, still inherently sinister and ugly, that I readily throw open the door to without a second glance, without a thought. The welcome sign is on my door.

For me, those sins include sloth, gluttony, poor time management, being satisfied with lesser things, setting up false saviors, selfish desires for ease, pleasure, and comfort, isolationism, ignoring the Spirit’s prompting…oh, my! The list goes on. Do you also have a list of pet sins that you coddle, appease, defend, and invite in?

These sins are just as insidious and dangerous. Why don’t I recognize mine for what they are? Oh, how easily I can get tripped up by the “little” sins that seem so harmless! Oh, dear Father! Help me, help us, to see sin for what it is…ALL sin. Protect us from the evil crouching at our doors! Keep our eyes open to Your Spirit’s leading and our ears tuned to His voice. Keep us in your Word.

“I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119:11 ESV)

Since I have been thinking on all these things, I have been haunted by a phrase from an old Steve Green song that has been going around and around in my head. It’s a great song called “Higher Ground.” I will close with a few of the lyrics, but, if you get a chance, it is worth a listen on YouTube.

In the world, but not of it

Caught in the storm, we’ve got to rise above it

Waves of ungodliness eroding the shore

It’s a treacherous sea, too wild to ignore

Build your house above the ocean

Build your house on higher ground

Build above the world’s commotion

And its mesmerizing sound

You’re taking your life into your hands

By building your castles in the sand

So build up high above the tide

Build on higher ground

God is calling us to remain unstained

In the rising flood of sin

And it’s easier to keep it out

If we don’t invite it in.

Take that welcome sign off your door!

More than the bug guy is waiting outside.

—Eileen Hill

Mama's Heavy Load

She walked awkwardly toward me, listing to one side like a sinking canoe. In her hand she clutched her black leather purse. “It’s so heavy,” she muttered to me. I rushed to relieve her of her load and groaned myself. It felt like she was toting a bowling ball. A man-size one. What on earth?

Mama had Alzheimer’s disease. Her brain was filled with tangles and globs so that she no longer had the ability to think or act or respond in a normal or routine way. One of her new behaviors was to obsessively gather (steal!) items wherever she was and stuff them in her purse. When we were in a store, someone’s home, church, or a hotel, I couldn’t let my unintentional thief out of my sight. Oh my! Lots of explanations and apologies. Thankfully, no arrests!

At home, restless, Mama would randomly pack deodorant, hairspray, books, a jewelry box, old food containers, empty toilet paper rolls, a slipper, and a stuffed animal or two into that stretched out bag. She dragged it around, possessively guarding it, refusing to set it down, and wearing herself out from its weight. And she wouldn’t let me help.

What an unnecessary burden! What a load to carry! Poor Mama!

She needed to lay it down.

I think my sweet Mama isn’t the only one who shoulders pointless loads.

Many of us are burdened by figuring life our on our own. We are saddled with other’s opinions and expectations. We are weighed down with greed, a lust for power and control, someone else’s standard for popularity, the need to be beautiful, wise, or successful. We are bowing under the weight of needing a perfect home, job, car, vacation, wedding, education, resume, children, marriage, friends. We are trudging along bearing sin, fear, guilt and shame.

Stop it! Run to the cross!  Lay it down! It really is that simple.

As God’s children, we simply do not have to carry these burdens anymore. As His children, we have been bought with the price of His very own blood. He has clothed our filthiness with His lovely righteousness and declared we are His. We no longer must figure life out on our own, to live for ourselves or others. We are under new management, wise, capable, powerful, gracious and limitless. Our gracious Owner is committed to supplying everything we need and to protecting us and to strengthening us and to giving us real purpose.  

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30)

And I am also thinking today of so many of my sweet friends and acquaintances who are shouldering, not unnecessary burdens, but incredibly difficult, legitimate burdens. These loads include the loss of loved ones, diagnoses of frightening illnesses, unreconcilable relational separations, injustice, abuse, uncertain jobs, aging difficulties…I could go on and on.

But my Father reminded me again this morning as I read Psalm 55:22 that we don’t have to carry any burdens alone.

“Cast your burden on the LORD, and He will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”

Why don’t we get this? Why are we so inclined to wallow under crushing burdens He wants to carry for us? And even more sweet than that precious promise are these words He speaks to us from Isaiah 46:4.

“I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”

He won’t just carry our burdens, real or imagined. He will even carry us.

Won’t you let Him?

Lay it down.

—Eileen Hill

Over the Sun

It wasn’t an oldie when I first heard it.

I guess that gives away my age.

In 1965, the Rolling Stones’ big hit Satisfaction was released in the United States. I remember watching them on our little black-and-white TV as they were performing on Shindig! Looking back at my very conservative upbringing, I can’t imagine that my parents allowed it, but I remember it vividly. Mick Jagger sang “the verses in a tone hovering between cynical commentary and frustrated protest, and then leaps half singing and half yelling into the chorus, ‘I can’t get no satisfaction.’” (Wikipedia) The song was all over the airwaves, poor grammar and all. It hit a cultural, collective nerve whether you were a fan of the Stones or not.

Have you ever felt like Mick, that you simply couldn’t get satisfaction from anything?  Maybe your list of things that haven’t lived up to your expectations differs drastically from Jagger’s catalogue of disappointments—or even Solomon’s—but I think it is a common human experience to be dissatisfied.

I know I have been.

As C.S. Lewis stated, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world” (Mere Christianity).

I think it’s incredibly important for us to remember that.

As our study of Ecclesiastes reminded us last Sunday, life is short. Our time on planet Earth, our life “under the sun,” is like a breath or a vapor compared to eternity which God has set in the hearts of all mankind. But this awareness of the brevity of our existence, this longing for the eternal, is a precious gift from our Father to provide an unsettling or a discomfort in the here and now as a reminder of what is ahead if we pursue our God who controls time, place, and purpose. There is another world. There is a lot more for us over the sun. And it is satisfying and eternal.

But do we really believe that our ultimate satisfaction will be found elsewhere? That it is eternity and rest that our hearts desire?  Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies, explains.

It is sad how many people constantly live in the schizophrenic craziness of eternity amnesia. We were created to live in a forever relationship with a forever God forever. We were designed to live based on a long view of life. We were made to live with one eye on now and one eye on eternity. You and I simply cannot live as we were put together to live without forever. But so many people try. They put all their hopes and dreams in the right here, right now situations, locations, possessions, positions, and people of their daily lives. They load moment after moment with undeliverable expectations. They ask people to be what people this side of eternity will never be. They demand that a seriously broken world deliver what it could never deliver even if it were not broken. They fail to recognize that at the bottom of all of this drivenness and insanity is an expectation that now can be the paradise it will never be.

It is wonderful for you to have a good marriage, but it will never be a paradise. It’s great to have a good relationship with your children, but they will never deliver paradise to you. That beautiful house that began decaying from the moment it was built will not be your paradise. Those still-flawed people around you will not offer you paradise-like relationships. In forgetting who you are, forgetting how you were designed to live, forgetting who God is, and forgetting what is to come, you make yourself and those around you crazy.”

Since our hearts have been hard-wired for eternity (Ecclesiastes 3:11), we hunger for paradise.

No one is satisfied with things the way they are. So either you try your hardest to turn your life right here, right now into the paradise it will never be and therefore become driven and disappointed, or you live in this broken world with the rest and peace that comes from knowing that a guaranteed place in paradise is in your future. You’re sad that things are as broken as they are, so you work to be an agent of change in God’s gracious and powerful hands, but you’re not anxious or driven. You know that this world is not stuck and that it hasn’t been abandoned by God. You know that God is working his eternal plan. He is moving things toward their final conclusion. You can’t see it every day, but you know it’s true. In the middle of your sadness there is celebration, because you’ve read the final chapter and you know haw God’s grand story is going to end.

So you get up every morning and give yourself to doing the things that God says are good, because you know that if grace has put eternity in your future, there’s nothing that you could ever do in God’s name that is in vain. (Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies)

This is the end of the matter; all hath been heard: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

Unlike the Rolling Stones, you will get satisfaction. Genuine, lasting, and sweet.

For all eternity.

Now that’s something to sing about, Mick!

—Eileen Hill

Covering the Eye

I have another story for you.

Years and years ago, in a very remote and primitive jungle area, a frustrated foreman had been hired from outside the region to supervise the clearing of an airstrip for the off-the-grid village. He soon discovered that if he were not physically present to oversee the work crew, no work would be accomplished. None. Even when he left explicit orders and detailed instructions, the men lounged around, took naps, and played cards as soon as the manager drove off for supplies or was otherwise engaged.

But this clever boss held a wild card.

He had a glass eye!

To his amazement and great satisfaction, he took out his artificial eye one afternoon and set it on a stump alongside the field that was to be leveled. He strode away. The wary workers, eyeing the prosthesis, conscientiously hustled and bustled about their duties all day just as if their boss was there watching them.

Until the day one of the men quite bravely crept up behind the shiny eye on the stump and tossed his hat over it!

The poker game was back on. Time to gossip at the water cooler once more.

It’s a funny story, right? But I think there is more to it than a smile.

I think many of us, consciously or not, have “covered the eye” and gone back to lounging around when we should be working.

We are lazy.

Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies, says it is the bad news that we need, but don’t really want to think about. We agree the workers in that far off village were lazy, but the truth is, if sin lives in us, laziness will be a problem for us all.

Dr. Tripp explains. “Now, because as a sinner I tend to make life all about me, I work to avoid anything that is hard or uncomfortable to do. I tend to curse hard work, the need to serve others, the call to persevere, the inescapable reality of suffering, the requirement of daily labor, the call to engage myself in the work of a bigger kingdom than my own, or the moral requirements to use my gifts for the glory of someone other than myself.

“There are ways in which sin makes us all work avoiders. It tends to make us all think that the good life is the life free of the need for labor. But the fact of the matter is that we were created to work, and not just for the good of our own lives, but in willing and joyful submission to the One who created us. Work is not a curse; it is our created identity…Until grace has completed its work, we will tend to find work more of a burden than a calling and a joy. Grace and grace alone is able to make otherwise lazy people industrious workers to the glory of God.”

That’s what I’d rather be, wouldn’t you? The Jews in Nehemiah’s story, attacked, abused, and thwarted at every turn, certainly were industrious laborers as they rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple of God.

I think it would help us to keep in mind that all work is Kingdom work. And that our real Boss is the King of Kings. Work is not secular or sacred. It is all sacred.

There is something else to remember.

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.                      (2 Chronicles 16:9)

As His workers, His ever-watchful eye is trained on us, not in anger or simply to keep us in line, but to help us accomplish the tasks He so wisely and graciously planned for us before we were born. What a beautiful thought! Long before I knew Him, He had already purposed my daily chores, my jobs, my service. He cares what I do. He is watching out for me. He will help me, support me. He will give me grace.

Oh, how can I be lazy or careless or discontented or disillusioned or nonchalant or self-seeking in whatever task He has chosen for me?

I will weed for His glory. I will scrub for His glory. I will teach for His glory. I will drive the bus for His glory. I will answer the phone, prepare the reports, crunch the numbers, drill the tooth, care for that patient, foster that child, spread mulch at church, and preach that sermon—all to the glory of God, for the advancement of His Kingdom right here and now.

There is a lot of Kingdom work to do. He has a lot of grace to give.

And He’s the Boss.  

You can never really cover the eye.

—Eileen Hill