My sweet, crazy friend in Germany sent me a Skype video message and asked if I’m too happy to blog these days. “I’ve checked your blog the last weeks, and I don’t see you writing anything and I wonder, ‘Ok, is she very sad, or is she just busy, or is she too happy to blog anything?’ So I hope you’re too happy!”

I’m all of the above, and mostly too focused on using words in other ways than on a blog. And more than anything, this is a season of rest and silence and transition, where the words that are part of my life are too intense and/or too foggy to put out there for public consumption.

Still, there are some words that should maybe see the virtual light of day.

It was in a class called Developing As a Servant. One assignment was to give a 2-minute presentation to the class about a servant who impacted us. I knew the stereotypical Sunday school answer: (given in a high little voice, nodding) “my mommy and daddy” but that was the prevailing impression that stayed in my mind as I tried to decide what I would tell the class.

I said my parents have given their lives to serving people and being in ministry in some way, instead of pursuing the American dream, and I’m so grateful for that example. Then I gave this vignette:

I was with my dad in town some years back. It was a couple days before Christmas and the atmosphere was pretty crazy. We were picking up an order that we needed for our business, and the lady at the service desk couldn’t find it, and wasn’t being very helpful. The details are hazy to me now, but I remember that we weren’t getting the service we should have and we needed the order NOW, not in a few days.

I worked in a store for many years and I know how to serve customers, so I’m very sensitive to the customer service I receive. I notice and am very appreciative of good service, but when it’s not so good, I quickly decide not to patronize the place again. At that counter with my dad, I was at the side, watching the scene play out. My instinct would have been to be snappy and demanding. (That was back then, I’d never do that now. sigh. Actually, now I’d probably go into a whiny mode and act pitiful.)

But my dad stayed calm and polite and even cheerful. He calmly asked when the order will be in and didn’t demand what was his right as a customer. I got the distinct impression that he was serving her and being helpful to her when she was the one who should’ve been doing that to him.

That’s my model, which seems like a mouthful to say, as selfish and myopic as I am. But it’s my aspiration–to give grace and understanding to my world. Indiscriminately. Generously. Cheerfully. Quietly.

I often cry when I think about how incredibly wonderful it would be to walk beside Jesus, laugh with Him, and listen to how He talked with people. In a tiny way, I can do that  now when I’m in step with the Spirit who is tenting in me and guides me. To serve my thirsty world, care, anticipate need, give gentleness–this is living like my dad and Jesus.

One customer service agent, one fellow traveler, one sister, one neighbor at a time. Jesus and I, we can change the world.

Join me?

(The next few posts are installments of an article that was first printed in the lovely Daughters of Promise Sept.-Oct. 2015 issue. You might mosey over to their site to subscribe for yourself or a friend?

“Beauty” is a theme saturated with strong emotions, our own stories, and our dreams.The words I offer here are like anything else that appears here: ruminations and ideas to take or leave as you wish.)

Where’s that eye cream my friend gave?

This was my thought, the minute I saw my eyes have crow’s feet when I smile.

When I noticed wisps of silver at my ears and temples: I’m too young for grey hair. Where can I buy some brown-tinted shampoo?

I didn’t think I had a complex about my age. I don’t notice wrinkles and grey hair on other women. But on my face? Suddenly I was aware of a complex I couldn’t even name.

It had something to do with my idea of my face, and wrinkles and grey hair didn’t fit into that. Or then it was connected to my self-image, and my body’s new developments messed with who I thought I was: not beautiful, but not aging.

What is beauty, anyhow? I started mulling.

The miles of aisles selling crèmes, toners, colors and oils seem to imply beauty is in a bottle or package. Particularly one with shiny wrapping and curlicue graphics. The bottle’s contents will surely imbed the same attractiveness on your face or hair or legs.

Age-defying. Blemish-perfecting. Clearer skin after 7 days. Glossy hair—in the color of your choice. Break- through ingredient. Regenerating technology. Nature’s micro-oil fusion. Shimmering. Instantly luminous and youthful.

Beauty is something you can hold in your hand, exchange for some money, and keep within arm’s reach every day. Or on your dresser, catch-all basket, or bag. (Beauty is also the style and color of one’s shoes. Or scarf. Or belt.)

I’ve been thinking about seasons and moments, and how life is directional like a timeline, and I hear ladies not saying how old they are, and others feel melancholy about some percentage of their life being over.

Maybe I’m naive but I’ve never understood women’s reticence about saying their age. I get the idea of life having seasons. That seems obvious.

Maybe I’m missing something but what I don’t get is reflecting on life’s passing and being sad about it. When someone moans,”Now my life is 30% over,” I want to say “How do you know? The young can die as soon as the old. You only have this moment. Please don’t sigh about whatever fraction of your life is behind and ahead of you.”

One way this plays out is in celebrating small and big moments. The brilliant leaf on the sidewalk. The sky’s reflection in a water puddle. Someone’s choice of words. An anniversary of a significant event should be acknowledged, pondered, reflected on. Every birthday deserves cheers and salutations and blessings given, but I think especially decade birthdays should have extra blessings pronounced, bigger candles and cake. Or stashes of chocolate, as the case may be.

It’s not something to moan about, being over the hill or so much nearer to the end of life. It should be something to make much of, that we’ve been given THIS HUGE GIFT of life, crammed full of 10,000 moments every day, filled with color and music and fresh air and wispy hair. What’s to be melancholy about that?

Oh yes, the greying hair. I know. I see them every morning. It’s a sign.

It’s a sign that you have seen diamonds on trees and touched baby’s skin and tasted tears.

And you’re bigger and broader and wiser than a year ago. And a day ago. And a moment ago.

What’s to be sad about that? You could be jaded. You could be comatose. Those would be something to be sad about.

But you’re ALIVE!

This is a gift not everyone has. Take it with both hands open, revel in it, breathe it in deep.

If life is a timeline, it follows that we are at a point because of other points that precede this. Maybe those who treasure life most are those who have walked through places where they learn how fragile the line is, how easily it breaks.

Maybe we can’t know what we have until it’s been threatened or removed. I have been shattered emotionally and physically and maybe that’s why moments are so important to me. After my traumatic surgery, the anesthesiologist shone her flashlight in my eye to check my brain activity because my body was convulsing. I stopped breathing twice, and I resented the nurse shaking my shoulder, telling me to breathe, because I was finally resting and it was dark and calm there.

Life is beautiful, but it’s also terrible and frightening and there are moments that want to crush you. But life is living and growing and changing and not staying the same and I’m not enough of a poet to put it into words, but I want to say it’s a gift. You don’t earn gifts or refuse them. Life wants to be taken and made much of.

So celebrate!

So there’s this verse in Revelation that gives us a peek into the future and how the story will end. It says the Christians overcame the enemy, that ancient serpent, by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

“Testimony” is a powerful word, more than we usually realize. Among other things, I think it means telling our story, and not keeping truth to ourselves.

Listening to each others’ stories–giving testimony to what God has done–can be strengthening, encouraging, and helps keep us from feeling alone in our life experiences. This can be a method of spiritual warfare, fighting shoulder to shoulder, and reminding each other to keep heart.

However.

Does listening to someone’s testimony also sometimes take you aback, just for a second? It does for me.

Not often, but now and then, I hear or read a glowing testimony and it leaves me with a little thud inside. I don’t mean to be cynical. I don’t want to be hard or skeptical. But sometimes I want to say, But what if that necessary phone call hadn’t come 5 minutes later? What if that long night of the soul hadn’t been relieved the next month? Would He still be great and faithful and a help in time of need? Is your good story the reason you love Him?

I ask this because sometimes your testimony doesn’t have a tidy, happy wrap-up where all the pieces fit and everyone is smiling and the house looks like a catalog. Mine doesn’t, anyhow. Don’t get me wrong–I love my life, and I laugh a lot, but I also weep a lot and my heart gets shattered regularly.

Because we’re on a battlefield and it’s not pretty. There are cosmic-sized wagers going on over every soul. There is a snake who is bent on killing and destroying saints, and he fights ugly.

Beyond that, God is generous and merciful and long-suffering, but He will not be bargained with. He’s not a genie for us to rub and get our pet wishes. His purposes are wondrous but unsearchable, and we very often don’t see through His infinite decisions.

So sometimes your story script has the doctor saying words you don’t want to hear..

Or your husband absconds.

Or your old Bible and journal are stolen along with your van.

Or the troubled relationship stays troubled.

You can add your own list of griefs and losses, and they are real and not just something to brush away with a pat answer.

Those stories don’t come out so quickly in a prayer and praise service when the moderator asks for testimonies. Because it feels weird to tell a story without a sweet ending. Or it hurts so much that we’re afraid we’ll bawl all over the pew.

But that grief? That loneliness?

That’s your testimony, and a powerful one that can be used to wreck the enemy. Because if it’s about how you’re talking to God about it, your story includes trust.

The people we consider giants of faith were probably sometimes silent when their friends gave sparkling accounts of how God came through for them. They were misused, misunderstood, and didn’t get what they were asking God for. But they are the witnesses in the grandstands now, cheering for us, saying “Keep going! Keep talking to Jesus–look at Him! The best part of your story is still coming!”

Think of Hannah, who was blubbering so desperately that she was mistaken as a drunk. Before she knew how her story would finish, she was beating on God’s chest, imploring, not denying her raw ache. I bet she’s in the grandstands now, saying, “Go on–tell God how much it hurts–He can take it! He has the whole world in His hands–you can TRUST Him–He’s SAFE!”

God’s blessing comes to the one who trusts, the Psalmist says, and trust means being honest with God.

Trust doesn’t insist on answers and solutions.

Trust weeps because she knows her God sees and collects her tears.

Trust says “though He kills me, I will trust.”

And “even if He doesn’t deliver us, we will not bow down.”

And “even if the fig tree doesn’t bud, I will rejoice in God.”

Trust never swaggers but croaks out, “I believe; please help my unbelief.”

Trust holds onto His promises and believes His goodness even when the agony doesn’t end and the answer doesn’t come in 5 minutes or one week.

Sometimes I think our tidy testimonies are fine and good but border on implying “God did x,y,z for me, and so now I know He’s big and trustworthy.”

I think the saints’ stories that defeated the enemy were not the chirpy, tidy, sparkling testimonies that are often in the periodicals or the Sunday morning share times. They were the stories that said, “Life stinks right now–my brother got sawed in two pieces yesterday–but I know God is still good.” (Please don’t hear me knocking beautiful, glad stories of God’s provision. The point here is that those aren’t the only stories out there, and what then?)

Trust is most visible in the dark, in the loneliness, in the scary diagnosis, in the fallout from the enemy’s attack. Trust is maybe the loudest, clearest defeat to the enemy.

It says we will go down fighting for Light and Truth and we will not swallow lies or follow the mini-gods of pleasure and ease or despair that tantalize us.

He blesses trust with His presence, the greatest gift possible.

And His presence defeats the enemy.

That’s why your testimony is worth so much.