Showing all posts in July 2022

My favorite fireworks story to tell is the time our family sought the perfect spot to watch a July 4^th celebration over downtown Birmingham.

Daddy pulled to the side of the road on top of a viaduct to give us a decent-but-distant view of the Birmingham skyline from our cream-colored, four-door Oldsmobile. After he parked, he got out of the car to see if he could bend back some bushes to improve our line of sight. I’m not sure any of us were paying him much attention until we saw him sprinting back to the car, chased by two very menacing, very loud guard dogs! There was a “No Trespassing” sign he either hadn’t noticed or didn’t take seriously. My brothers and I had never seen Daddy move so fast! The memory still makes us laugh.

Daddy didn’t always choose free seats for fireworks watching. Some years we paid for tickets to see Birmingham Barons baseball with fireworks following the game. Other years we bought our own fireworks and shot them at home from the top of our driveway. We launched bottle rockets from mom’s Mason jars, spelled our name with sparklers and held Roman candles as jets of light shot high, like spells cast from the wands of wizards during the Battle of Hogwarts.

I wanted Abby Kate and Lily to experience the simple fun of fireworks the same way my brothers and I did, from a glass bottle or jar or held (safely) in their hands. So we drove to my mother-in-law’s home in rural Mississippi where there was plenty of room to shoot and the noise wouldn’t bother anybody. We visited a local fireworks stand and paid a whopping $10.97 for bottle rockets, sparklers and those tadpole-shaped things that snap and pop when you pitch them to the ground.

Whatever spirit the girls lacked in mixing homemade ice cream (see last week’s writing) they more than made up for with old-school fireworks. They loved lighting the fuse on the bottle rockets and watching them launch into the night sky. They swish-and-flicked their sparklers, writing their names and starting mock lightsaber battles. They played the way I did when I was their age, when life was simple and summer was slow.

Now that I’m a mom watching fireworks, whether backyard blasts or a professional display, I often find myself looking away from the fireworks and focusing instead on Abby Kate and Lily’s enchanted faces. Their eyes fill with awe and delight, and I understand why Jesus says the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.  

Fireworks have taught me something else about faith this summer and that is you have to look up to see them. Look up. Those two words remind me of Psalm 121:

            “I lift my eyes toward the mountains.
            Where will my help come from?
            My help comes from the Lord,
            the Maker of heaven and earth.
            He will not allow your foot to slip;
            your Protector will not slumber.
            Indeed, the Protector of Israel
            does not slumber or sleep.
            The Lord protects you;
            the Lord is a shelter right by your side.
            The sun will not strike you by day
            or the moon by night.
            The Lord will protect you from all harm;
            He will protect your life.
            The Lord will protect your coming and going
            both now and forever.”

My life feels really vulnerable right now for a lot of reasons, especially as the girls begin a new school year.   Lily leaves the comfort of elementary school to start 6^th grade in August. Abby Kate is in the throes of middle school and all the social anxieties that come with 8^th grade. Faith feels precarious as what-ifs and worst-cases creep into my thoughts. Fear and worry chase me, very menacing, very loud like those two dogs that nipped at daddy. So, I run. Into God’s presence. The Hills. My Help.

Does your faith feel wobbly today, too? I encourage you to take a cue from summer fireworks shows. Your faith, however feeble, can be a bright spot, piercing the darkness. Look up. Keep looking up. And rest in the wonder and peace of God’s promises. 

The odds were in my favor that tasting homemade ice cream would be the hands-down favorite old-fashioned summer fun activity for my daughters. Leave it to them to beat the odds. Abby Kate checked out as soon as she found out our batch wasn’t cookies and cream flavored. Lily at least sampled a spoonful but decided she didn’t like it.

Crazy kids.

Ice cream colors a lot of my summer memories: red, orange and purple popsicles passed out each night of Vacation Bible School at Bayview Baptist Church, vanilla and chocolate swirls served in a miniature plastic baseball hat at a Birmingham Barons baseball game, and the light-pink hue of homemade cherry ice cream churned in an electric ice cream machine in my mom’s kitchen.

I can still hear the whir of the motor as it mixed the milk, sugar and maraschino cherries, ice crystals forming on the outside of the metal can beneath the ice and rock salt. The hum stirred my excitement as much as it did the ingredients. I loved that sound. I knew something special was happening because homemade ice cream wasn’t something we enjoyed every day. It was a celebration food for the July 4^th holiday and other summer occasions.

I found this picture of my daddy supervising a double batch of homemade ice cream outside in our yard. I don’t recall the day but the picture itself is important to me now. Daddy passed away in 2007. He loved homemade cherry ice cream. He also loved Jesus and wrote letters to me to encourage me in my faith. In one of his letters he advised, “When in doubt, PRAY and then wait on God to lead you.”

Wait.

Waiting on ice cream is easy. The instructions tell us exactly when we will get what we want. And if we’ve followed the recipe, we are practically guaranteed it’s going to turn out alright. If only waiting on God was so simple and assured. Unlike an ice cream recipe, it can be difficult to discern the next step He wants us to take. Sometimes it’s hard to believe His answer for us will be good, at least in the sense that we want it to be. Like a kid who can’t wait to eat ice cream, we pace the kitchen floor, our emotions churning, asking God to please hurry so we can be satisfied with something sweet in our lives.

Sometimes we have to wait for what is good, whether homemade ice cream or answers to our prayers.

I have asked a very specific request of God for the last year. My prayer pendulum has swung between pleading cries and trying to convince myself I’m OK without the answer I want. As I wrestle with doubt and discontent I have found consolation and hope in Psalm 37. Verses 3-7 of that chapter are a recipe of sorts for what to do while we wait:

“Trust in the Lord and do good;
     dwell in the land and enjoy safe pleasure.
Take delight in the Lord,
     and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
     Trust in Him and He will do this:
He will make your righteousness reward shine like the dawn,
     your vindication like the noonday sun.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him;”

Trust.
Delight.
Commit.
Be Still.

Are you in a season of waiting? I invite you to sit beside me with Psalm 37 because I believe God can do more than we can imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

A couple of weeks ago I made a list of ways God has been faithful to me and my family. I noticed the specific ways He has answered prayers, particulars that could not possibly be called coincidence. God cares about the details of our lives and orchestrates them more beautifully than we ever could. Don’t take my word for it. Take His.

Here are a few Bible promises to encourage you as you wait to receive what is good.

“But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” (Lamentations 3:25)

“In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.” (Psalm 5:3)

As you wait, you may feel better to indulge a bowl or two of ice cream. I highly recommend the homemade kind.