They Prayed for Paint

Pastor José’s eyes were rimmed with red as we gathered at the front of his church. We had just finished painting his house, transforming a drab concrete building into a vibrant standout in his barrio.

“My family – we gather every morning to pray, and we have prayed for a year to have our house painted,” he explained softly as the translator relayed his words.

I dropped my eyes to the dirt floor of the “Jesus is the Way to Heaven” Church. I have just repainted my entire house, and prayer was not part of the process. The money was in the bank, the desire was in my heart, and that’s all there was to it. I wanted to, so I did.

The humble pastor went on to tell us how his family has prayed for paint, but God did not allow for it until now. “Many people in my country think pastors are becoming wealthy,” he said. I wondered what they would think of American celebrity pastors as wealthy as our athletes.

He told us of how just that morning God revealed to him a lesson about protection. He said that God kept them from having the money to paint it themselves so that others would see the house after our team left and know that the money came from God, not their own greed.

The paint provided a beautiful lesson as well as a beautiful house.

We all bowed as José began to pray, the Spanish flowing from his mouth in the most heartfelt prayer I have heard. His words and the translator’s overlapped, and though I missed some words, I did not miss the Spirit. 

The sanctuary had no air conditioning and only dirt for a floor. There were no projectors showing catchy videos, no sound system blaring latest hits. No pens advertising fancy logos, no worship guides to fill in.

But make no mistake – it was worship. 

I wiped away the tears that would not stop as I thought of how wrong I – we – have been. Pastor José prayed for a year for what we deem simple, and I give up after mere days on what is important.

As the prayer grew in intensity, the wind began to blow. The yellow plastic decorations that hung above our heads began to rustle, and I knew it was the Holy Spirit in our midst. I cannot explain what I felt as we gathered in that place, but I know that it is a place God has blessed.

Pastor José’s church continues to grow, with people bypassing other houses of worship to attend there. Their previous location was destroyed by a drunk man wielding a machete, but the congregation now knows that God allowed its destruction for a purpose. Doesn’t He always?

I did not want that moment to end, a moment when the Lord’s glory came down and was palpable, but as all such moments in this life must, it did. We wiped away tears, hugged the gentle pastor, and assured him of our continued support.

Friday, we will leave this place, having painted some walls and played with some children. We will return to our state of the art church facility and our own luxurious homes. We will reenter our daily lives, demands returning and needs pressing.

But we will not forget. We will remember standing in the shadow of a volcano where the Spirit erupted, touching our hearts and reminding us of His love.

Poverty Is Not Just Physical

Her brown eyes followed our van as we passed her on the bumpy road, looking through the windows at a dozen Americans conspicuously out of place in her neighborhood. We had come to bless a local Nicaraguan pastor by painting his house, a luxury for a man whose family can easily be without food. 

She spoke nothing to us, but I wondered what her words would be. What stories could she tell of living in such a place? Homes walled with black plastic sheeting; floors nothing but dirt. Garbage littering what passes for a road, leading to a neighborhood where children wander unattended and adults loiter because there is no job to be worked.

I saw her for just seconds, but her face is on my mind tonight.

She could be me.

My natural reaction on any trip away from America is to pity the inhabitants of wherever I travel.

“They just don’t know what they’re missing,” I think.

Which is what? More electronic devices than there are people in the house? So much food that I toss expired bags full? So many channels to watch that I never have to converse with the people I love most?

Maybe I’m the one who is missing something.

Poverty is not just a physical condition. So many of us – rich Americans who are spoiled more than we know – are really the poorest of the poor. We lack contentment in our everyday and peace in our condition because we know too much. We know that the world is full of more – more to do, more to buy, more to see. 

But now as the rain is pouring and I am reflecting, I wonder… Does it matter that there’s more? If peace is possible in the scarcity, why do we convince ourselves it’s only found in the plenty?

If I have learned anything from the people of Nicaragua on my trips to their country, it is this: possessions are not the purpose, and poverty is not just physical. I have walked into houses with no beds – no beds! – and the inhabitants smile and hug. I have played with children who don’t have playrooms mimicking Toys R Us, and they are exuberant. I have seen cardboard as the only barrier from the elements, and the families are joyous.

I want that to be me.

That should be all believers.

Christians are not immune from the traps of the world – more, better, now. We spend on what doesn’t last and invest in what is fleeting. We store up here and neglect what is to come.

Remind us that we are your hands and feet, Lord, and that unless we serve, people hurt. People starve. People die without You.

You have commanded us to love, but we choose when and where.

You have commanded us to give, but we selfishly hold some back.

You have commanded us to go, but we make excuses and sit in comfort.

Forgive us, Lord.

Create in us a new heart, and renew a steadfast spirit within.

On a Plane Again

Tomorrow is a big deal for the new Mrs. Scott. From this point forward, it shall be known as 'the day Jennie got on a plane on purpose for the second time in one summer.'

Kind of catchy.

The first time was to catch a cruise ship out of Puerto Rico for a luxurious honeymoon where someone else turned down my bed and made cute animals out of my towels. Sunday is to go to Nicaragua for a mission trip where bats are said to fly through the house I'll be staying in and where I will have zero access to a hair dryer or flat iron.

So the trips will be slightly different.

Other than the plane ride, I'm so excited I can't stand it. If I could just be beamed up like Scotty, all would be well. However, beaming up technology hasn't made its way to me yet, so I'll be forced to zoom through the air at 500 miles an hour in an aluminum can.

Can I get some pills, please?

Suffice it to say I'm not the best traveler. I have what might be called in some circles a slight case of the panic attacks. My poor new husband still bears the claw marks on his arm from our previous flight. If I could just be the one flying the plane, I think I'd be ok. It's a control issue. And maybe a "we're 30,000 feet above the ground" issue.

But whatever.

Once we arrive in Nicaragua, we'll be working with some local missionaries to paint, build structures, love on some kids... Anything that needs to be done.

All joking aside, this country is one of my favorite places on earth. I've been there once before, and it's where I began falling in love with Mr. Scott. Literally a life-changing experience. I'm praying that the next week will be equally as life-changing. There's just something about getting away from the convenience of my everyday life to remind me of the needs that people face constantly. (And I'm not just talking about the needs of the Nicaraguans. I'm talking about the needs I have to get over my own selfishness, act like Jesus, and share the gospel).

Next week as internet access allows, I'll be sharing what our team is doing and how God is working. We appreciate your prayers!

Now to go find those pills...

Elephant Ears

More than anything in this world, I want my children to seek the Lord. Yes, I'd like for them to do well in school and to choose career paths that are fulfilling and noble. I pray that they'll each find a lifelong love, and that their addresses will be no farther than a stone's throw away. I desire for them to know who they really are deep inside and what the passions that consume them are for. As all moms do, I have a laundry list of things I'd love for my children to experience. But more than all that, I just want them to know and love Jesus. The deepest desire of my heart is for them to desire Him.

I want them to know what I know of His goodness, trust as I do in His provision, believe as I've come to in His faithfulness. 

I want them to revel in His Word, be consumed by His work, and devote themselves in His service. 

A struggle for me has been how to 'train up a child in the way he should go' while still ensuring that the choice is his. I don't want my children simply to follow in my religion; I want them to fall in love with my Savior. 

I want them to wrestle and search, question and think. 

I want their allegiance to Christ to be of their own accord. How to lead them to Jesus without commanding it of them has been, and I'm sure will continue to be, a delicate balance. 

So I speak of Him as if He is a tangible part of my life, sharing with them what I see of His works. I pray to Him in front of them, giving them a picture of what a life following Him looks like. I tell them when I've messed up, and let them see that I'm not perfect. They see me reading my Bible and journaling my thoughts, and we have conversations about questions they have. 

We were driving home one night, and somehow began talking about prayer. I was explaining that praying is just as much about listening to what the Holy Spirit says as it is about talking, and my sweet, precocious daughter chimed in.

 "Mommy, it's kind of hard to hear Jesus, but I bet elephants can because they have really big ears."

Haven't you ever wanted really big elephant ears? Haven't you ever needed to hear Jesus but struggled to do so? 

I explained to Katherine - and reminded myself - that in times when it's hard to hear the still, small voice, we have to remember the words He's already said. 

We have to know the truth of Scripture in the times when  His voice is silent. 

We have to rely on who He is when we can't hear what He says.

One day, when they're old enough, I will share with them this journey and the lessons it has taught me. In the meantime, however, I will simply share the journey's Jesus and the love that He has shown. I will tell of His goodness and ever-present help. 

I will teach them His Word, and pray that they'll have elephant ears. 

On College Football, Tweets, and God

I may be a girly-girl, but I definitely love me some college football. While the Clemson Tigers are my personal favorite, I enjoy watching any team play. 

I follow several players on Twitter, and a few of them tweeted the same thing following their teams’ victories – “God is good!” From what I know of these young men, they really do seek to follow the Lord, but I wonder… Would their tweets have been the same if their teams had lost?

We hear so often that ‘God is good’ when people are on their personal mountaintops, experiencing favor and blessing, lacking no good thing. But when life is hard, a barren wasteland of hardship and confusion, that statement is not as often proclaimed. Why? Do we associate our ease with God’s goodness? Tangible blessing with love?

I agree wholeheartedly that God is good, but it isn’t in victory that I’ve learned it. I came to believe in His goodness – His eternal, unchanging, omnipresent good – in my personal time of defeat, a time when no good was being poured out on me. I saw His good when all else was bad.

What do we even mean when we say He is good? You might disagree, but I think most people mean ‘He gives good things’ or ‘I feel good.’

We say that our children are ‘good’ when they are well-behaved, associating their goodness with their behavior, and I think we subconsciously do the same with our God. If He behaves in a way that seems to benefit us, then we deem Him good. If we feel slighted or hurt by His actions (or allowances), then we question His goodness.

Unlike our children, however, God does not change. He is the same “yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Scripture tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and if that was true thousands of years ago when it was written, then it is true today.

Because God IS love, everything that God allows comes FROM love.

Everything comes from love – even what momentarily seems bad. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17). Troubles come – and will come – but they are not an indication that God is not good. They are an indication that He desires eternal glory for us! 

The bad of this life is God’s good in disguise.

Who Doubts Teachers Now? My Thoughts on Sandy Hook

Like you, I am still in shock. Twenty babies were gunned down in their bright, cheerful school, innocently learning and unsuspecting of what was to come. 

Their faces haunt my thoughts, come to mind when I see the smiles of my own two children. I think of their parents’ grief and I weep, crying for their pain that I can never begin to understand. I see my children’s stockings and think of 20 that will never be filled. I watch my children’s chests rise and fall in peaceful sleep and know that there are parents who would give everything they have for just one more night.

It doesn’t make any sense.

How can a mother move forward when the children who grew within her will grow no more? How does a daddy walk past the bedroom where the child will never need tucking in again? How?

It is more wrong than my words can express.

In the midst of the sadness and need for understanding, one ray of light has shone. The teachers. We have all heard the accounts of their bravery and heroics, reading Christmas stories to innocents as bullets rained right outside. Finding crayons and coloring sheets to distract little ones while evil tried to overtake. Stepping between gunman and children, sacrificing self. The teachers were heroes.

The teachers are heroes.

I am in no way trying to glorify mere people, but I am so proud of my fellow educators that I have to speak out. What these teachers did Friday is what teachers do every day. We give what is ours. For some of these in Sandy Hook, that gift was their lives.

Every day in a battle that can feel as if we are losing, teachers give. We give hours that are unpaid, money that is never reimbursed, encouragement that is unwelcome. We give suggestions that are unheeded, time that we don’t have, lessons that we learned the hard way. We receive no recognition, are talked poorly about by many, and are questioned as if we’re not professionals.

We are undeterred, though, because there is something more important than the hours, the time, the disrespect.

The children.

We become surrogate parents to our students, calling them “our kids,” seeing them not just as pupils but as our own dearly loved. They get on our last nerves, trying our patience, but come hell or high water, we will not let them go.  

On a normal day, we are determined not to let them fail. We insist they complete lessons, participate in class, persevere through hard lessons. We tolerate no unkindness, teach them to encourage each other, help them to see that knowledge is powerful.

We stand between them and this evil world that wants them. We stand between them and complacency. We stand between them and the easy way out.

In Sandy Hook on a day that was not normal, the teachers stood between them and the bullets.

I have heard reports that one teacher said, “I wanted my voice to be the last thing they heard, not the gunshots…” This shows the heart of a teacher – protect the children, whatever the cost.

To those who question the value of public schools, the professionalism of its teachers – may you all, right now, know that every teacher I have met would do exactly what those in Connecticut did. We would lay down our lives for your children. We lay down our lives for them daily in our classrooms, and if, God, forbid, we were ever faced with a gun, we would still willingly give what is ours for them.

Why Praying for Protection Isn't Best

She weighed just five pounds the day we brought her home from the hospital, no heavier in my arms than a bag of sugar. She was born too early, five weeks before her due date, and had to learn to eat on her own before she could be released to our care. Her tiny hands were bruised from fluid-giving IVs, and her preemie outfits swallowed her whole. A feeding tube gave her the nutrition she needed when she lost the strength to suck, and each feeding became agony as we willed her to swallow just one more ounce.

In those earliest days, when she cried nonstop and was so physically fragile, I prayed protection for my sweet girl. “Please, Lord, help her to eat. Let all of her systems be working as they should, and keep her safe from anything that might hurt her.”

He, faithfully, answered those prayers.

As she grew in size and strength, she still cried nonstop and never slept more than 3 hours at a time. She was so hard to soothe, needing to be held all the time, and her demands seemed, some days, more than I could bear. Her brother was not yet two years old, and the needs of them both left me exhausted and weak. Still, I prayed for my sweet girl. “God, I don’t know what to do. Nothing calms her, and I am at my wit’s end. Protect her from whatever invisible irritation I cannot see, and keep her safe from harm.”

Faithful, He did.

When she learned to toddle and chase after her ‘bubba,’ the dangers she faced increased tenfold. She put everything in her mouth, tripped and fell more than she walked, climbed into places forbidden, and even ate the cat’s food. She, still, never slept more than 3 hours at a time. She jerked toys from brother, fell out of her crib, pulled chairs down on herself, and tore up my nerves. My prayers became longer and louder. “Jesus, it will be a miracle if she survives the next day. I feel like I should wrap this one in bubble wrap – will you please protect her when I can’t? Please, God, keep her safe. Everything she does scares me to death. She has no fear, and I am playing defense nonstop. I need you, Lord, to protect my sweet girl…”

Ever true, He did.

The first day I left her in the preschool’s care, I breathed a sigh of relief and cried tears of regret. It was already time for her to be without me? Had I given her enough love? Was she certain I’d return? Would she treat her little classmates with kindness? Would she be safe without me there to keep her out of trouble? Prayers – again – were sent heavenward. “God, be with her today, to protect her from harm. Don’t let anything hurt her, no matter what she gets into. Let her know she is loved, and let her be secure in that knowledge.”

He did.

Today, she is nearly six, and I cannot believe the child once smaller than a doll is the girl whose face I kiss each night. She is growing like a weed, legs colt-like in length, her baby teeth replaced with for-now-too-large permanent ones. She reads like her Mama and flips like a gymnast. She has her own very definite opinions (perhaps, like her Mama), and is nothing like what I imagined my daughter would be. She is secure and self-confident, outgoing and hilarious, the exact opposite of how I was at her age.

And, still, I pray. I pray so many things for my girl – a life lived fully, with no regrets; the confidence to chase those dreams forming in her heart. Good friends to grow up with, a spiritual foundation to anchor her, safety when we are apart.

I have prayed for God to protect her in all situations, to keep her little body and spirit safe from all harm. I know my mother prayed the same things for me – all moms do. It’s who we are, safety-begging women. 

But God didn’t answer all of my mother's prayers; He didn’t protect me from all harm. 

He allowed the most hurtful thing I can imagine to occur in my life, and He might allow an equally awful situation to unfold for my daughter. Why? Does He ignore the prayers of some mothers? Does He not hear? Is He not always faithful?

No. That’s not it at all.

It’s because His plan is better than the protection we desire. His healing in our lives cannot come without the hurt. Protection is not always preventing hardship; sometimes, protection is allowing it.

I love the story of the bleeding woman in the book of Luke. This woman was afflicted for twelve years with a condition that caused her to be an outcast in her community. For reasons unknown, she bled for twelve years, and no one could help her. Her condition was, in human eyes, incurable. It also caused her to be considered unclean according to Jewish law. Anyone she touched and any place she sat became tainted, requiring ceremonial cleansing to be acceptable again.

She heard that Jesus was passing through her town, and she likely knew the stories. He had calmed lake storms, raised children from death! Surely this man was the answer; surely just touching him could cure her. As Jesus passed by, surrounded by crowds wanting to see just what He could do, “She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped” (Luke 8:44).

Jesus’ reaction is worthy of a great discussion, but that’s not what recently struck me about this passage. It was the fact that Jesus allowed her to suffer indescribably for twelve years. For over a decade, this woman had faced ridicule, isolation, rejection from the church, unanswerable questions, and physical torment. Her mother’s prayers for protection, and no doubt her own, went unanswered. She was not kept safe, was not protected from all harm. She was allowed to be miserable and to hurt.

Yet there was a purpose.

The suffering was not without reason; the pain was not pointless. Jesus allowed her pleas to go unanswered and her condition to remain uncured so that when He came close, she would be ready. The years-long pain persisted so that at the moment He passed by, she would persist in seeking Him. I believe that without her hurt, she would likely have never realized her need for a Healer. Without her suffering, she would not have known her need for a Savior. Without her life threatened, she would not have chased the Life-Giver.

I want my sweet girl protected, yes, but more than that, I want these words she wrote as a five year old to be her life’s declaration:

My prayers for her are changing. 

I think I will always desire for her to be kept safe, but my greatest prayer is that she will be drawn increasingly closer to the heart of the Lord. I will ask God to do whatever it takes – and I don’t take those words lightly, since I know what they can mean – to capture her heart and attention. 

I will ask Him to use her life for His purposes, even it means her life has some pain. 


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