With a loud screech of metal against metal, the riding lawnmower blades came to a shuddering stop. I knew exactly what the problem was…I’d run over a piece of wire from the old electric fence and it was tangled in the mower blades. But identifying the problem and knowing how to fix it were two different things.

After 33 yrs of sharing tasks, it’s hard when everything becomes your responsibility…especially the things that weren’t yours before. I’d not driven a mower in years and had to get my son to teach me how to handle it. Every time I’d need to crank it, I’d have to call him to go over the steps one more time. Then when it wouldn’t crank I’d have to call and be walked through the terrifying (to me anyway) steps of hooking up the battery cables to jumpstart the battery.

It’s embarrassing to feel so helpless, but I called again to ask what I should do now. He said he could drive 5 hrs to come fix it for me or I might drive it up a couple of the wide front porch steps and try cutting away the wire.

It was scary to drive the mower up the steps, but I did it. Then I lay down on the ground and looked under the mower. The wire was twisted and wrapped from every direction at least a dozen times around the blades. I just stared at it for a while…there was no way to untangle the mess. It looked totally unfixable.

So I decided I’d just start clipping wire every place I could get the wire cutters to reach. Even if it didn’t make sense to clip it at that spot, I’d clip it anyway. There was a small space on the top where the clippers could reach through. And a little space on the side where I could see part of what I was doing. But I had to do most of the clipping sight unseen. I’d touch the wire with my left fingers to position the clippers with my right hand. Then I’d hold the wire from under the mower and clip through the space from the top.

After numerous cuts, it felt wonderful to see little pieces of wire begin dropping off. And eventually, after a couple hours of clipping, every single last piece of wire came off.

I was sweaty and dirty and incredibly proud of myself. The unfixable and tangled wire bore strong resemblance to how my life felt at that time. And each little clip represented the importance of just doing the next thing. I couldn’t see how life could ever be good again, any more than I could see how all of that wire could be removed.

But all the wire came off.

Your own ears will hear him.

Right behind you a voice will say,

“This is the way you should go,”

whether to the right or to the left.

Isaiah 30:21

I will show you what it’s like

when someone comes to me,

listens to my teaching,

and then follows it.  

It is like a person building a house

who digs deep

and lays the foundation on solid rock.

When the floodwaters rise

and break against that house,

it stands firm

because it is well built.

(Luke 6:47-48)

Torrential spring rains recently caused the foundation of my son’s home to shift. During a lightning thunderstorm downpour, he and his wife heard a loud crash and the next day discovered multiple wall cracks in a corner bedroom.

A contractor confirmed the damage and suggested not repairing the wall cracks until the foundation problem is fixed. He said that, without a solid foundation, the house could shift again and would destroy any hastily made surface repairs.

What a great life analogy.

Several years ago, a normal morning dawned, but before it was over, part of my life foundation had shifted. It began when my daughter called to tell me that her dad, my husband, had been killed…and left painful cracks all over my life. And my human reaction was to want it all fixed. Fix it now. Please, please, please God, fix it now.

But he didn’t.

He did, however, make me consciously aware of his rock-solid presence. And also promised me that I could stand firm on his foundation because, regardless of the storms around me, it’s never ever going to move, crack or shift.

Sometime last year I read where only a tiny fraction of Christians had ever read through the entire Bible. That bothered me because I know it’s God’s personal letter to each of us. I’ve studied Scripture, and even taught from it, but was embarrassed to admit I’d only read my Bible from cover to cover one time.

So I stocked up on highlighters and began reading in chunks. I highlighted everything that grabbed my attention…a place I’d been, a funny name, a concept that took my breath away, or a sentence that made me cry and say, “Thank you, Jesus”.

I love words and playing with them to paint word pictures; and repeatedly mulled over one of God’s names, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. Whenever he showed up, amazing things were about to happen.

The more I read, the more awed I was that that very same LORD has given me an open door invitation to spend time alone with him.

“I am the LORD, and I do not change…”

(Malachi 3:6)

And I love that about him, but the funny thing is…the more time I spend with him, the more he changes me.

“Intreat me not to leave thee,

or to return from following after thee:

for whither thou goest, I will go;

and where thou lodgest, I will lodge:

thy people shall be my people,

and thy God my God:

Where thou diest, will I die,

and there will I be buried:

the LORD do so to me,

and more also,

if ought but death part thee and me”.

(Ruth 1:16-17)

And so promised Ruth, a young Moabite widow, born from a people established through incest—to Naomi, her widowed and bitterly disappointed-by-life mother-in-law.

With this poetic declaration, Ruth set herself apart from her own idol worshipping people, and moved into an amazing historical position…the direct lineage of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Ruth couldn’t have known the eternal significance of the choice she made on the road leading to Judah. But at the core of her promise were the words that would define the rest of her life:

…and thy God will be my God…

And the daily defining prayer of my heart:

You are my God,

and I will praise you;

you are my God,

and I will exalt you.

Psalm 118:28

(bold/italics mine)

In those days…

all the people

did whatever seemed right

in their own eyes.

       Judges 17:6

Not a great rule of thumb for folks born with a sin nature and in need of grace.

Now turn the page to chapter 19. Or not. I’d have been tempted to leave this entire sordid mess of sexual violence and dismemberment out. Or at least give it a NC-17 rating so the unsuspecting reader doesn’t just stumble into it. But this pitiful story of the unnamed man, woman, father, old man and virgin daughter is merely a sequence in the bigger story.

So after they’d done what seemed right in their own eyes…

Everyone who saw it said,

   “Such a horrible crime

       has not been committed

         in all the time since Israel left Egypt.

Think about it!

   What are we going to do?

       Who’s going to speak up”?

                  Judges 19:30

Indeed.

My God is crystal clear on sin. He doesn’t sugarcoat it or the eventual outcomes of a life lived without him. And I praise him for that because when the stakes are high, and the outcomes eternal, I want the complete, unvarnished, and straight up truth.