Grace Picks Up the Poop
Sometimes I feel like God has a funny relationship with me because He likes to ask me to do funny things, or at least what seem funny to me. You see my husband is one of those who, when out walking, when he sees a piece of trash on the ground, he will stop, pick it up, and carry it with him to throw it away. He always does. And of course I admire that about him, but I don’t always necessarily do the same. I mean, I’ve got my kids, right? And who wants to pick up someone else’s garbage?
But sometimes I feel like God asks me to do something and, just like I do with Dutch, looks me in the eye sternly and challenges me: Will you obey me in all things? About a month ago I had such an experience. I was out doing my daily walk and right along Salamo Rd, there was a little blue garbage bag. Now Jeff and I often joke about West Linn and the little blue bags. Everyone has them. They are for picking up dog poop, and since everyone in West Linn seems to have a dog, and they all take them walking, they all carry around these little blue garbage bags which they use to pick up their poop, tie up, and carry with them on their walks.
So on my walk, there in the middle of the sidewalk was one of these poop bags–full. Sick. I veered around it, thinking, “Gross, who would leave their poop bag in the middle of the sidewalk.” And immediately the thought entered my mind: “Pick it up.” I shrugged it off. By now I was a ways past, and I didn’t want to turn around, march back along the busy road and scoop up the poop bag. Come on. I kept walking. After I got home I knew I’d disobeyed. It might sound silly but I knew that I’d missed an opportunity to obey God. But I was home, I didn’t want to go back, so I figured that was that.
The next day I went for my daily walk. To my amazement when I got to that spot, the poop bag was still there! I slowed down, and realized that God was probably giving me another chance to obey Him. But you know what? I’m ashamed to admit it but I didn’t pick it up. By then it was smashed on the sidwalk (sick!) and it’s always easier to disobey God the second time than it is the first, so I left it. The next time I went by it was gone, and I realized I really had missed a chance. Someone else had done what I was too proud to do.
Yesterday as we gathered for our women’s ministry meeting one of our leaders and I were talking. She said, “I have to show you this devotional I read the other day.” I took it from her and read the brief devotional story: A man was walking along the sidewalk just as an expensive flashy sports car was pulling up at a traffic light. The man finished his soda and tossed the empty pop can out the window into the ditch. The man walking, a Christian, continued walking across the street and thought to himself, “What kind of jerk throws his pop can out of the window? That is what sin does!” Immediately he sensed God’s voiced prodding his heart: “Sin throws out the pop can, but grace stoops down and picks it up.”
Grace picks it up. You know it’s so easy as Christians to expect the people around us to live as if they were Christ-followers. But why should they? How can people who are dead in sin be expected to live as if they are alive in Christ? Why should we expect unbelievers to have prayer in school, to speak wholesomely, to remain faithful to their spouses, when they don’t have Christ’s new life living in them. They live as sinners. Our lives should then be a response of grace.
So today I went walking, and would you believe it, as I turned the corner onto Salamo road, there it was–a blue bag, full of dog poop. I kept walking past, but only a few steps. Grace picks it up. I stopped. I turned around the stroller and went back. I was a little grossed out as I picked up the doggie defecation, but carried it home. And as silly and small as it may be, I finally sensed God’s smile on me, I finally had obeyed.
Well the humorous part was that I refused to bring the poop inside our apartment and we are a long ways from the dumpster, so I just sat it on our front porch. When Jeff came home from work he said, “Someone left their blue poop bag on our front porch!”
I smiled. “No hon. It was me. I learned something today. Grace picks up the poop.”
—
From the archives. Learning it again…
Pausing to Refuel. Remembering to Live.
I am a fringe writer.
I write during night-times, nap-times and bath-times (perched next to the tub while tots splash). The moment a child goes down the laptop screen flips up. I scribble words on receipts, packing slips and envelopes. Some of them even survive and find their way to you.
And as some of you know, some of them are stringing themselves together into a book, so more than ever the laptop calls: Open me. Write!
Sometimes it even whines. Nags: You really should be writing, you know…
So we are at Black Butte now. A glorious vacation with out-of-town family and cloudless skies and swimming pools and tennis courts and 17 miles of biking trails. But I brought two-dozen books and high hopes of finishing Galatians studies and polishing chapters and, Lord willing, producing a few posts as well for our sweet space here? For this mommy, vacation means free time and free time means writing time and here we are and it’s late Sunday night and you will be here in the morning to say hello and I hold out my hands to you and they are …
Empty.
But, oddly enough, I am full.
Because you see each time I go to God I keep sensing His loving urge to just live this moment now. To ride the bikes with kids and sprawl on floor with Legos and stop and watch the deer just outside the kitchen window. To snuggle long with my little ones and even longer with my man. To kneel in the kiddie pool and comb slowly through those curls and read the book “just one more time” before the last kiss goodnight.
I suppose it’s because in order to fill up with fuel you have to actually stop the car.
Actually turn off the engine.
And. Just. Sit.
Still.
And today we, my man and I, raced bikes like kids to the tennis courts and played like we used to back in the day and then hot and sweaty jumped straight in the pool ice-cold. Then one more game dripping wet before climbing back up the hill to our sleeping babes.
That’s right, I thought as I pedaled hard, I musn’t forget to live.
Perhaps that goes for you as well?
{We all have pressing projects, you know.}
So as I enjoy these next two days, I’m delighted to share with you two of my favorite nuggets from the past, back by popular demand. (Because apparently you really love a good laugh at my expense.) Poop and hair dye are on the horizon, along with some of the best spiritual lessons I’ve learned to date. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you also have a moment, today, to stop. Refuel. Remember to live.
Thanks for reading — and for your grace as I rest.
Week's end with thanks
- Seventeen green tomatoes growing on the vine. Daily glimpse of hope and promise right outside my front door.
- Fresh salmon dinner, green beans and salad from the garden, finished off with Dad’s homemade vanilla ice cream. This is summer.
- Dutch’s maiden voyage on his new Lightning McQueen bike. So excited for my boy! Then …
- Poor Dutch flying down the hill at Melody’s, forgetting how to use his brakes, me running behind dragging Heidi by the arm, trying to catch him. Too slow, the dirt bank provided a merciful end to the runaway bike. No injuries, and after the hysterics were over he actually climbed back on!
- My tomboy: “No, pants!”
- Thinning carrots with Melody. Good words exchanged with hands in dirt. Digging into the soil of our garden and our hearts. Love doing life together.
- Good friend letting Dutch come play for the day.
- Girl day out. Sweet finds and sweeter chats.
- Zucchini!
- Still devouring cherries.
- Getting inspired.
- Gracious and amazing open door for Sacred Mundane.
- Kind people. Owing you nothing but offering you much.
- Faithful pray-ers.
- Papua Night at Community Group. Getting the joy of learning about Brendon and Naomi Yoder headed to Papua, Indonesia with Wycliffe. SO inspired, blessed, encouraged. LOVE these dear saints so much. Almost as much as I love the peanut sauce chicken sate they served! Yum!
- Friends who check on you.
- Hugs.
- Eyes that say it all.
- Selfless husband who volunteers.
- Early bedtime for children and children’s mommy.
- Mentoring Group! Love love loving these awesome women.
- Writing my obituary. Odd, yes. But such a good spiritual exercise.
- Texts that bring a smile to my face.
- Cowboy cookies.
- Very kind and encouraging words from childcare workers. So thankful for them!
- Jesus Christ, the good life.
- The Pursuit of God.
- AW Tozer. I hope to hug him someday in heaven. The man has blessed my life.
- New paints! Kids creating masterpieces.
- Long drive to Bend providing perfect opportunity for long-overdue phone catch-up conversation. Blessed by dear friend!
- Amazing place to call “home” for 7 days. Kids instantly picking spots to sleep.
- Kids delighted by deer just off the back patio.
- Evening quiet.
- Large closets that sleep a 2-year-old perfectly…
- Berry Buckle.
- Generous saints who bring dinner, just because. Feast that fed us for multiple meals.
- Kids getting dressed straight from the clothesline.
- Warm jammies on cool nights.
- Shallow pool for little swimmers.
- Long bike ride at dusk with my man.
- Coming suddenly upon meadow, children playing tag, running free.
- Afternoon run in the heat. Sweating through my thoughts, prayers.
- California King-sized bed. No, I don’t mind at all having that much space.
- Quiet afternoon on the deck, alone with my words.
- Candyland.
- Cousins scampering.
- Silence.
- Stillness.
- Him.
F is for Family (the friends you didn't choose)
The quote wraps lovely around the coffee mug in large looping letters:
“Friends are the family you choose for yourself.”
Yes, so true. Sip the hot tea and warm thoughts of being chosen. Friendship certainly is special.
Then there is family. The real kind.
You didn’t choose them. And they certainly didn’t choose you.
Our August is full of family. We just finished a blessed ten days sprinkled with boating and camping and biking and feasting and swimming and shopping with my brother and his family visiting from Utah. We now are at Black Butte for a week with Jeff’s side of the family. At this very moment I sit in silence on the deck, looking out at towering ponderosa pines while Heidi sleeps and the rest have ridden bikes to the pool. It is the only moment of silence there has been, however, as our vacation home is teeming with four little cousins and seven adults with a couple more to come.
We’ve not seen Jeff’s brother and his family for two years and three years before that. Heidi certainly doesn’t remember seeing her cousins last, and Dutch only faintly remembered playing together two Thanksgivings ago.
We’re also a bit different. Or a lot different. They speak Spanish in their home, live in the blazing heat of Arizona and at least for awhile had gone the route of a Spanish-French immersion school. We speak English in our home, albeit not that well, we huddle close in the cool Northwestern weather, and don’t immerse ourselves in much of anything but the wading pool.
All that to say these four little cousins hardly know each other from Adam and also don’t have a whole lot in common.
And yet, within 30 seconds of their arrival, all the cousins were tramping through the house, Dutch excitedly showing them their quarters, all donning the capes that Nana had made for each. They quickly turned to outside adventures, comparing bikes and exploring the yard and, Dutch describing where he’d seen the deer last night.
After they’ve long gone to the pool and the house is quiet, I sit and think how funny it is — all of us, so different, all under one roof for seven days. I think of the quote on the mug: “Friends are the family you choose for yourself.” I certainly didn’t choose any of these people, and they certainly didn’t choose me.
But isn’t that exactly why family is so sacred?
Isn’t that the beauty of family? That we didn’t pick them and we love them anyway. That they didn’t choose us but they love us anyway.
I remember when my brother and his wife came from a missionary trip to China. They spoke of how the missionaries there, of which there were very few, referred to each other as “family.” Why? Because they certainly didn’t choose each other, but they were there and chose to love each other for the sake of the gospel. You couldn’t get in a tiff and go find some new friends. There weren’t any others! They got along because each other was all that they had. In that sense, they were family.
We live in a “De-friending” world. Facebook didn’t make us fickle friends, it just named what we were already doing in real life.
So I wonder again about the beauty of friendship being in the ability to choose.
Is preference really beautiful? Could it be we’ve set our gaze a bit low and there’s a loftier choice to be found?
What if the beauty lies not in choosing each other but in choosing love…
Sure, there’s less pride to pass around when we do less choosing and more loving. We can no longer take credit for our connections, but instead we humbly receive and extend grace-motivated love.
I’m basking in that grace-love this month as we rub shoulders with all the blessed friends we didn’t choose. There is no place I’d rather be.
{How can you choose love today? Happy Friday from Black Butte and thanks for reading.)