Author

Lois Flowers

How a Psalm I Learned as a Child Saved Me as an Adult

by Lois Flowers November 4, 2014

by Lois Flowers

When I was a kid memorizing Psalm 121 in Sunday school, I had no inkling that this little chapter about hills and such would one day rescue me from a dark valley.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help, the King James Version begins. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

As a young adult, my church choir learned a song based on this text that fed my soul through years of infertility and waiting to complete an international adoption. The ensuing decade brought another adoption, a move to a different state and the regular challenges that come with mothering two active little girls. I was busy, but blessed.

Trouble Brewing

Inside, though, all was not well. And that’s why I found myself in the shower one Sunday morning, somewhere near despair. To this day, I’m not quite sure how to describe it. I didn’t wish I was dead. I didn’t want to die. But some how, I didn’t want to be alive.

I hadn’t arrived at this disturbing place overnight, of course. For most of my adult life, my reproductive system has been a thorn in my side.

Severe endometriosis mangled my insides and robbed me of my ability to conceive. And after adoption paved my way to motherhood, I began to struggle off and on with other symptoms of hormonal imbalance: fatigue, anxiety, melancholy, irritability, lack of focus, feeling overwhelmed.

A Dark Turn

These wreaked havoc on my spirit and certainly didn’t enhance the life of anyone close to me. But this—this wanting to stop the bus of life and get off—this was new. New and dreadful and terrifying.

As I stood there in the shower, the song that had so encouraged me before flitted through my troubled mind and I began to sing. Shakily at first, the words pushed past the turmoil in my brain and came pouring out my mouth.

“I … will … lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help … my help cometh from the Lord … the Lord which made heaven and earth …”

My Source of Strength

Over and over, tears mixing with soap and water, I lifted my voice—and my heart—to my only true Source of strength. And little by little, spurred by the mysterious working of Scripture, my feelings of deep despondency gave way, gently replaced by the peace that surpasses all understanding.

My internal struggles weren’t over. In fact, they would get worse before they got better. But, to paraphrase one of the final verses of Psalm 121, the Lord had preserved me from all evil that morning, and, to this day, He continues to preserve my soul.

♥ Lois

This column originally appeared in the Kansas City Star.

Photo credit:Len Radin via photopin cc

November 4, 2014 6 comments

Introducing Song of the Month

by Lois Flowers November 2, 2014

by Lois Flowers

Some people remember momentous occasions or difficult seasons in their lives by the meals they ate or the clothes they wore.

I remember though songs.

That Halloween a couple years ago when I was driving my parents to the hospital because my dad’s epilepsy had sent him into a scary, Groundhog-Day cycle of amnesia? Matt Redmon’s “10,000 Reasons” came on the radio at just the right time, bringing tremendous comfort to both me and my mom.

That first Easter after my friend Lisa died? Matt Maher’s “Christ is Risen” filled my heart with renewed hope that this life is not the end for those of us who love Jesus.

That summer when Randy had been working out of town for several months, we were living in a recently purchased fixer-upper and the girls were anticipating starting a new school in the fall? Laura Story’s “Blessings” provided encouragement, not to mention plenty of minivan discussion about why God allows His children to go through stretching times.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Music speaks to me like nothing else. I prefer certain artists and styles, but every now and then, Randy will come home and play me a song he’s found somewhere—a song he’s sure I’m gonna love even though it fits in a music box I would probably never open on my own.

And you know what? Those are among the songs I end up listening to over and over again, the songs I want to send out to everyone I know who might like music with instructions to listen up because I just know they’re gonna love them too.

I know, I know. Not everyone has the same taste in music. But if a song brings tears to my eyes or stirs me to dance around the kitchen with my arms raised in praise, I’m pretty sure it will do the same for someone else.

That’s why I’m introducing a feature on Waxing Gibbous called, simply, “Song of the Month.” I don’t usually post on the first day of the week, but one Sunday a month I will share a song that has captured my mind and heart, in hopes that it might encourage you, too.

Randy found this first one. It’s sung by Lacey Sturm, the former lead singer of the Christian hard rock band Flyleaf.

♥ Lois

Photo credit:random wire via photopin cc

November 2, 2014 1 comment

When in Doubt, Run to the Father

by Lois Flowers October 28, 2014

by Lois Flowers

There are some details missing from the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, things we might think of as biblical fact that really aren’t there at all.

The Bible doesn’t actually say, for example, what their relationship with God really looked like—how often they experienced His presence and heard His actual voice. But based on Gen. 3:3, which says they “heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume they spent enough time near Him to know what His presence sounded like.

I can hardly imagine what it might have been like to be in such close fellowship with God—completely comfortable and free from the slightest trace of guilt or shame. Whatever it was like, that’s what Adam and Eve experienced.

Then they were tempted by Satan, cleverly disguised as a serpent, to eat fruit from the one tree in the Garden that God said was off limits. Forget all the other delicious fruit they’d been eating since Day One. Now, suddenly (or maybe not so suddenly), they want the one they aren’t supposed to have.

That’s how it always is, isn’t it? No wonder Ruth Bell Graham calls it the testing tree in her lovely children’s book One Wintry Night.

I’m pointing no fingers at Eve here. If I had been in her place, I might have done exactly what she did. But it makes me sad, as I think about it now, that her first inclination was not to run to her Creator and ask for help when that serpent first appeared.

This is what conscientious parents teach their children to do, right? I know it’s a lesson Randy and I have tried to impart to our daughters.

“Girls,” we’ve told them, “if you find yourself in a situation or conversation and you don’t know what to do, or you have a funny feeling about it, or you know something’s not right, don’t wait—come and talk to us about it.”

And they do.

“Mom, I need to talk to you,” one will say. And she takes me to the bedroom, shuts the door and asks a question or tells me what’s on her mind. I always go into these conversations with a bit of trepidation because I never know what to expect, but I cherish them nonetheless.

Whatever it is, I always, always want them to ask or tell me. I always want them to feel like they can tell me.

Not that I’m always a big help. I remember Lilly coming home in second grade and quizzing me—more than once, as I recall—about a word she had heard at school.

“Is funk a bad word?” she wanted to know.

“No, of course not,” I answered, without giving it a second thought. “It’s like a rotten mood or something.”

Take a wild guess where this is about to go.

Now that I think about it, I’m sure I heard an occasional cuss word when I was in second grade. But I was not prepared for my innocent little girl to be exposed to the granddaddy of all bad words at that age, so it didn’t even register that she might be asking about the obvious four-letter word that starts with F.

Turns out, it was that word, and not funk, that she was asking about. A too-knowledgeable-for-his-own-good classmate, noticing her naiveté, apparently had gotten a big kick out of teaching her to say it, and their conversation had been overhead by a teacher at recess.

By the time the students had been ushered back to the classroom to deal with this little crisis, Lilly was so frustrated that she exclaimed—loudly and in front of everyone—“But I don’t even know what @#$% means!”

She doesn’t remember this event and thought it was pretty funny when I told her about it recently. But talk about dropping the mom ball. Yikes.

Fortunately, God never drops the ball in such situations. The still, small voice, that feeling I get when I know something’s not right, that specific bit of Scripture that speaks directly into my soul—that’s Him, letting me know which way is the right way, and which way is not.

Which makes me wonder: When the serpent first appeared, why in the name of all things good and holy didn’t Eve get that funny feeling in the pit of her stomach that would have sent her running straight to God? Or, if she did get it, why didn’t she heed it?

There’s no way to know, of course. But still, I can’t help but wonder.

Part of me thinks, if Eve didn’t do this, and she actually physically walked in the presence of God, what hope is there for me? But then I think of another tree, and what Jesus did there—the reason He did it and the finality of His sacrifice. And I know there is always a chance, and another chance, and another chance.

It’s called grace. And how lost we would be without it.

Photo credit:FotoGraf-Zahl via photopin cc

October 28, 2014 1 comment

Author Notes: “Spiritual Misfit” by Michelle DeRusha

by Lois Flowers October 23, 2014

by Lois Flowers

Dear Michelle,

I must be honest. At first, the cover of your book confused me. Every time I picked it up to read, I’d glance at all those black birds perched on telephone wires on the left side of the book and wonder, What does that have to do with being a spiritual misfit?

Ahem.

I thought my observational skills had improved over the last few years, but apparently, they still need some work. I eventually turned my gaze to the right side of the book, where, in all its lovely glory, is the lone red bird perched on the wire.

Of course. What a beautiful picture of your story. A person may feel like a misfit on her spiritual journey, but in God’s eyes, she is a unique and beautiful creation, just like that cardinal. And, no matter where she comes from—even Massachusetts, in your case—she is worth every ounce of effort it seemingly takes for God to draw her into His eternal family.

I also have to tell you that it took me awhile to get into your book because I was distracted by a detail. (Are you starting to notice a pattern here?) You write about stealing a necklace from your classmate’s desk when you were in third grade, and how this crime ushered in feelings of guilt that haunted you well into your adult years.

All I could think when I was reading this anecdote was, Why didn’t she just find a time when the girl wasn’t at her desk and put the necklace back? If assuaging the guilt was your sole goal, you could have achieved that easily. Plus you would have saved yourself years of heartache and paranoia.

Of course, you also might have breezed through life without finally realizing your need for a Savior, which would have negated the need for your book. So now I’m glad you didn’t put the necklace back.

I’m also thankful I didn’t let my tendency to get distracted keep me from reading the rest of Spiritual Misfit. While the stuff of life has slowly eroded many of my perfectionist tendencies, I can relate to your propensity for structure, order and logic. And when I read that your “grocery list is laid out in Excel according to Super Saver’s aisles,” I was hooked.

I was born “back East,” as they say, but have spent much of my life in the rectangular block of a state just below Nebraska. So your perspective about the culture shock you experienced when you moved from your beloved Massachusetts to the Cornhusker state was hilarious. From the oppressive heat and the fact that everyone had a “church family” they were eager to talk about, to the abundance of corn crops and mammoth grasshoppers, I can see why you often felt you were living in a foreign country.

I grew up in a Christian family and never really strayed from the faith, so your story intrigued me. It was refreshing to read about someone who starts out with no faith and ends up finding Jesus, as opposed to today’s popular narrative of people who grew up in some kind of “Christian subculture” only to leave it behind when they entered adulthood.

I love that, despite the strangeness of everything you encountered along the way—Bible studies, praying out loud in small groups, the “Christian Inspiration” department at Barnes & Noble, for example—you kept searching. I admire your forthrightness about where you were spiritually, your conscious decision to choose blessing and reject doubt, and especially your willingness push forward even when it meant putting yourself in uncomfortable places.

Your self-deprecating humor made the book all the more enjoyable. At one point in the chapter about grace, I was laughing so hard I had to stop and read several paragraphs aloud to my husband. Who knew a person’s experience with such a foundational theological truth could be so funny?

I hate to be the one to break it to you, Michelle, but there is something very Midwestern about your stick-to-itiveness, your determination to put one foot in front of the other even though you didn’t experience some kind of emotionally charged conversion.

I’ve known some Nebraskans in my lifetime. They work hard; they don’t take themselves too seriously; they’re always willing to help. That’s just the kind of people they are.

It sounds like you are now one of them, Michelle. There are many worse things you could be, don’t you think?

Thanks for writing a great book.

To learn more about the Author Notes series, click here.

October 23, 2014 3 comments

Introducing Author Notes on Waxing Gibbous

by Lois Flowers October 21, 2014

by Lois Flowers

Throughout my adult life, I’ve had a recurring bad dream.

High school is winding down for the year; there are only a few weeks left. An English class assignment, handed out at the beginning of the year, was to write one book report each month. For some reason, I failed to do this.

I completely blew off the whole thing.

Now in real, wide-awake life, this is not like me at all. You can ask my college roommate—I was one of those annoying people who had research papers and other assignments done weeks in advance and never, ever had to pull an all-nighter to finish something at the last minute.

In my dream, however, I hadn’t done a single book report. Not one.

That may not seem like a nightmare to you, but I am in a panic. How in the world am I going to read nine books and write nine book reports in three weeks? Even worse, I always wake up before I figure out what to do. It drives me crazy every time.

I’d rather not delve into my subconscious mind to find out what all that really means. I’ll just tell you that, on the surface, it means that I don’t like writing book reports. I never have, and I never will.

Grown-up professional writers don’t call them book reports, of course. We call them book reviews. And while I have written a few, mainly when I was working for an e-zine about leadership, I don’t like writing them, either.

I do love to read, however. Not as much as my older daughter, who reads the warnings on toothpaste tubes while she’s brushing her teeth and the lists of championship swimmers on the walls at the indoor pool while she’s doing laps during swim lessons. Still, a lot.

Because I love books and reading so much, I had to include some kind of book feature on Waxing Gibbous. But it wasn’t until I started thinking like an author instead of a book reviewer that I hit upon the solution.

I am not a New-York-Times-bestselling author by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. I have received letters about my books over the years, though, and I absolutely love them. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only author who feels this way.

But here’s the thing. I have been reading good books and saying things like, “I really need to write to So-and-So Author Person and tell her such-and-such” for years. And I’m embarrassed to say I have never once done it.

Well, that’s all about to change.

Now, when I read a book that either speaks to me in some deep way or leads me to make an actual change in my life, I will write to the author and tell her (or him) what I appreciate about his or her book. Then I’ll post the letter here and send it to the author.

Voila! Author appreciation and blog book feature accomplished in one fell swoop.

Keep a sharp eye out. The first Author Note will hit Waxing Gibbous soon.

October 21, 2014 3 comments

The Antidote to the Sour Burn

by Lois Flowers October 9, 2014

by Lois Flowers

There is a way I feel when fear and anxiety are crouching at the door of my mind and heart. It’s as if a mixture of lemon juice, vinegar and a splash of Sriracha hot chili sauce is seeping through my muscles, creating a sort of burn that is mostly sour and a little hot.

What I’m describing is just a feeling—a nasty feeling, to be sure, but not something chronic or requiring professional treatment. It comes on suddenly, and later—just as suddenly—it goes away.

Even so, I hate feeling this way. It saps my energy and makes me wander around aimlessly—even on weekend days that are absolutely perfect for gardening—unable to do anything at all productive.

I used to feel this way a lot; lately, not so much. Recently, however, there were a few weeks when the burn was back, with a vengeance.

I’m not exactly sure what brought it on. It might have been a delayed reaction to the changes of autumn—kids going back to school, adjusting to a new routine at home, that sort of thing. “All good things, all good things,” as the snowman Olaf says in my daughter Molly’s favorite movie. But change is change, and in my world, it tends to be hard.

A nasty sinus infection that kept me feeling bad long after I took my last antibiotic may have been the culprit. It might have had something to do with depleted hormones, or launching this blog—the excitement of starting something new coupled with the nervous anticipation of baring my soul to some tiny percentage of the online world.

Or it could have been some areas in my life where no news was definitely harder to deal with than bad news. Oswald Chambers wrote that the “nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty.” I’m sure he was right. But few things bring on the vinegar/lemon juice/hot sauce burn for me like waiting for an answer that may or may not come.

There are antidotes, of course. A 30-minute run on the treadmill. A short nap. A brisk walk in the sunshine. Lunch.

I tried all of these (especially lunch), and they all helped. But this time, the thing that brought the most relief were the words of an ancient shepherd-turned warrior king—the psalms of David.

I don’t care much for poetry. I can’t write it, and I usually don’t like to read it. But David’s verses—those speak to me. I love how he pours out his heart to God, holding nothing back, and how that always leads to praise.

“God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my life.” (Psalm 54:4)

“When I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God, whose word I praise.” (Psalm 56:3-4a)

“This I know: God is for me.” (Psalm 56: 9)

“I call to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me.” (Psalm 57:2)

“But I will sing of Your strength and will joyfully proclaim Your faithful love in the morning. For You have been a stronghold for me, a refuge in my day of trouble.” (Psalm 59:16)

These words? Sweet, peace-filled relief, more powerful than any combination of fear and vinegar.

I saw a friend in the bathroom at church on Sunday. She asked me how I was doing, and, after briefly considering various answers, I told her.

“I’m hoping this week will be better than last week,” I said.

And you know what? It was.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Crystal Storms at #HeartEncouragementThursday and Holley Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart.

photo credit:John Mueller via photopin cc

October 9, 2014 12 comments