Author: Jane Foard Thompson

Jane Foard Thompson is an inspirational speaker and award winning author and poet. A former Montessori teacher in Texas and Utah, for eight years Jane and her husband were missionaries in Honduras, Central America. After working for the American Red Cross in Idaho, they now live in Florida, where she writes, leads music and women's Bible studies at their church, and enjoys nine grandchildren and her Golden Retriever, Lily.

Halloween? No thanks.

I won’t be home for Halloween, and I must admit, I don’t mind. Unlike my youngest daughter, who has turned it into a warm neighborhood event, the best I have mustered is handing out stickers instead of candy. (I don’t use sugar, so can’t see giving it to children.) However, my feelings about Halloween go much deeper. It’s the darkness.darkness

Sure, a lot of people make cute costumes and have fun parties. I did that as a child and loved it. I enjoyed trick-or-treating with my brothers, gathering the haul of sweets that had to last us until Christmas. Bobbing for apples, carving Jack-o-lanterns and eating an apple on a string were great fun, too.

Back then, I didn’t recognize darkness. At least, not conceptually. I certainly felt it. And more, I lived in more darkness than I realized.

As an adult, when I learned what my father had been involved in, and the important part Halloween plays in the gruesome practices, I wanted to ban the celebration entirely.

I certainly never dressed up as a witch again. Give me animals or fairy tale characters any day.

What concerns me about Halloween, for our culture at large, is the growing, blatant familiarity with, and for some, preference for darkness.

Have you noticed, there is a trend toward more elaborate decorations for Halloween than for Christmas?

I know the darkness cannot overpower the light. I’ve read the last chapter.

It isn’t ghoulish rubber masks or pointed hats and brooms that bother me, so much as what they represent. It’s not all fantasy.

I am well acquainted with the way darkness can twist lives, damage children, tear families apart, even drive some to take their own lives, or other’s.

Evil is real.

In our world full of discord, public and personal ugliness, polarization on every side, selfishness, addictions of all kinds, and with an astounding market for child sex slaves and “private” porn, I don’t want to even play with the shadows.

I’ve seen what happens in my life when I’ve shifted my focus from what has harmed me to what blesses me. Have you?

I’ll chose the light, every time.

It does matter what we celebrate and honor, where we focus.

When Paul was in prison in Rome, and eventually died there, he wrote what some have called the Book of Joy to the Philippians. He could have looked at the moss on the cold stone walls, the chains, the guards, and the whispers of his eminent death, and gone into major depression.
Instead, he writes:

…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable — if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise — dwell on these things. Do what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:8-9

I get up

When 2015 closed out, I cheered the end of a long chapter of grief, illness, and injury. I was well on my way to walking pain-free and “getting my life back.” 2016 was going to be the year!

Months after my hip fracture and repair, I was able to enjoy doggie beach with Lily. I was able to make the trip postponed from November to visit my son and family on the other side of the state,

and visited my brother and his wife in their “new” house in Lakeland. (I’d spent Thanksgiving in the rehab unit, while family celebrated Thanksgiving at his house.)

Part of the time when MD and her family were here from Switzerland, I actually stayed a few days at the beach with them. 2016-05-03-20-57-08

2016-05-03-17-36-14

Once again I hosted Easter Sunday, dyeing eggs with the younger ones and feeding everyone a barbecue dinner. When school was out I enjoyed several weeks of Grammi Camp with my youngest grandkids.

I even did a little gardening.

Then pain came roaring back. After months of tests and no answers, I saw a hip specialist. He said it never healed. The ball is collapsing. Bipolar hip replacement surgery is scheduled for November. I’m back to managing pain and walking with a cane.

And fighting infections.

And wondering what I need to do to “get on track.”

After all, I have people to love, Bible studies to teach, books to finish, new ones to write, and weeds to pull.

And time is running out.

As a child, Alice in Wonderland terrified me, start to finish. (It was too much like my nightmares. And too much like my dysfunctional life.) Remember the scene where she needs a key to get through the door, but something keeps her from getting it at the right time, the right size? Sometimes I feel a bit like Alice.

According to my prayer list, I’m not alone. This last year or two has been especially challenging for many. And I’m sure that for every person who has asked for prayer, there are five more who keep their pain close to the chest.

Here we are, on another lap around Mount Sinai.

(God freed the Israelite nation from slavery in Egypt, complete with miraculously parting the Red Sea as they fled from the pursuing Egyptian army. Days later, as soon as they lacked something, they began to complain – about the water, then the food, then the leadership. Instead of a short journey to the land God had promised, they spent forty years taking laps around Mount Sinai, wearing out their hard hearts.)

After seeing me with a cane again and hearing about the new surgery, a friend at church remarked, “You’re just Calamity Jane, aren’t you?” That stung. I wondered if I am doing something to attract the hard stuff.

Is something I’m doing, thinking, or feeling keeping me in limbo?

Is there a lesson for me to learn, growth?

Or is it simply bad luck?

It really is okay to ask any kind of question. What makes the difference is where we go for the answers.

I ask others for prayers, or to open a door, or help to pick up the paper I dropped and stare at helplessly, calculating how much pain it is worth.

But the solid answers, the ones with life and wisdom, the answers with hope and a future only come from one place.

From the one who made me, just as I am. Inherent genetic weaknesses. Placed in a dysfunctional family. God saw all my days while I was still in my mother’s womb.

You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.

Psalm 139:20-21

I don’t need to read palms or tea leaves, search the stars or wander aimlessly. God has spoken, and his words are recorded.

I simply need to remember to read them!

The last couple of years I’ve enjoyed The Message, a brilliant paraphrase which gives fresh, contemporary meaning to words I might gloss over with too much familiarity. * (Note: The Message, by Eugene Peterson, is not authoritative. Use a real translation for study or theology.)

I go to the Book, and once again, I am re-focused.

Why would you ever complain, O Jacob, or, whine, Israel, saying, “God has lost track of me. He doesn’t care what happens to me”? Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening? God doesn’t come and go. God lasts. He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out. He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts. For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall. But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, they run and don’t get tired, they walk and don’t lag behind.

Isaiah 40:27‭-‬31 MSG

I’m reminded that it’s not about the circumstances. It’s about where I am looking, how I spend my energies and thoughts.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Philippians 4:8‭-‬9 MSG

More than health or freedom from pain, the desire of my heart is to be worked “into his most excellent harmonies.” (Maybe that’s why I love to sing alto and make up harmonies with contemporary music.)

What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.

1 Peter 1:3‭-‬5 MSG

That gives me hope. So, every time I get knocked down, I reach for the hand that holds the world, and fashioned me, and I get up. Again. (Even if that is sometimes only figuratively. When you’re flat in a hospital bed, that’s a big getting-back-up challenge.)

If you’re anything close to as old as I am, you likely remember the ice skater Scott Hamilton. He won four consecutive World Championships, then a gold in the 1984 Olympics. He’s fallen down plenty. Listen to his story.
Olympic Skater Scott Hamilton Facing Third Brain Tumor Diagnosis: ‘I Choose to Celebrate Life’

Have you felt knocked down this year?
What are you facing now?


Photo lovers: Sorry, this time all the shots are from my phone.

A mustard seed? Really?

Last week I talked about seeking small graces. Then I read Melissa’s response. And re-read it.

“I have to remember to stop spinning my wheels of doing and practice Being in Christ’s Grace and Love. As I walk through life grounded in God’s Grace, life takes on a spirit of peace and love.” Melissa

It had seemed reasonable, sensible, not asking too much, not being pushy or presumptuous, to be content with small graces. But I began to realize it’s like saying one lettuce leaf and a bite of an apple make a meal. I couldn’t live very well on that diet. light-meal

And my spirit wasn’t created for a miserly grace diet, either.

God held nothing back. He entered our world (that’s what the incarnation is all about), interacted and sacrificed for us so he could lavish his grace on us, his favor, all that we can never earn.

And with the death and resurrection of Jesus, all of the things that we do that negate life have been transformed. He has breathed new life into us.

Inhale.

It is a relief that I don’t have to try harder,

Or stay content among the rocks.

Last weekend I heard a great sermon about the story Jesus told his disciples when they asked him to give them more faith. He said if they had faith the size of a mustard seed they could move mountains.

A mustard seed? Really?

mustard-see
mustard seed with a dime

When the disciples had Jesus off to themselves, they asked, “Why couldn’t we throw it out?” “Because you’re not yet taking God seriously,” said Jesus.Matt 17:19-20 MSG

From the sermon, by Rev. Charleston D. Wilson, The Church of the Redeemer (underline mine)

When we face tough decisions and hard challenges in life, we not only have the challenge itself to deal with — the external issue — but we also have the internal — let’s say spiritual — struggle as well.

And that internal, spiritual struggle is rooted in that question we often ask ourselves – the same questions the Apostles were asking internally. Do I really have a quantity of faith — enough spiritual oomph, if you will — to deal with difficult decisions and challenges?

And, I’d like to suggest to you right here and right now that the answer to that question is a resounding, loud and clanging: “no!”

You hear me correctly.
No, even on our best days, we lack enough faith, if we’re measuring it by quantity, to face much of anything – let alone a big decision or challenge.

And this is actually good news. And this is actually freeing news. And getting in touch with this is good and emancipating news, because, meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow, and dealing with life in general, isn’t about a supposed quantity of faith at all.

Being a Christian, a man or woman of faith, is about the object of our faith, Jesus Christ, who is alive, and whose grace is sufficient.

Another way to say it is this: no, we don’t have enough, because He is enough!

When I became a Christian at ten, my grandmother gave me a necklace with a mustard seed inside clear resin. I wore it for years, trying hard to have enough faith to move mountains. After all, the seed was so small, surely I could do that much!

But I didn’t move any mountains. Many of my good intentions went haywire. Then, I spent years dwelling in regret – sure I’d failed the mustard seed test.

And wanting so much to make up for it.

When Jesus began speaking grace to me, personally, I even argued with him!

In a way, I guess I still am.

But the truth that is setting me free is, not only is it not about what I do, it isn’t even how much I believe. It’s not about me.

It’s about WHO I BELIEVE.

Every time I fail or struggle. Every time pain stabs me or someone I care about. Every time darkness seems to be winning here or around the world. Every time I don’t know how to pray — I focus on the one who created the world, created me, and creates new life.

Then the peace comes.

“Unbelievable” –but true.

And totally liberating.

Do you struggle with faith?
Have there been times or events that made faith hard?