And Still He Waits

Photos courtesy Erik Thorson copyright 2012

...indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD.

Numbers 14:21 

His body was battered, his eyes half-open, as he was dragged through the streets of Benghazi.

Her little body was fully formed and lifeless as it lay face-down in a trash can in India, surrounded by the other "products of conception."

Their faces were grim as they reported from the embattled embassy in Cairo.

His words were foul as he cursed others in the name of Satan on Twitter.
 

It's been a tough day in God's world. The images from television and Internet have been especially sobering lately. Across the planet, hate reverberates across the airwaves as man's inhumanity to man intensifies.

There's only so much a person can take. On a day like this, it's easier to turn away than to watch the carnage.

Post a recipe on Pinterest. Go shopping. Shut out the darkness.

Sometimes the silence from heaven itself seems deafening. Can't God see what is happening? Doesn't He care about the innocent men, women, children, and animals being destroyed every day? Where is God as the earth plunges toward destruction?

In the book of Numbers, we are told that the people of Israel had barely been delivered from the Egyptians when the complaining began. As they stood on the brink of the Promised Land, they feared the giants in the land more than they trusted God. So they plotted rebellion.

This breach of trust provoked God so much, He threatened to destroy them and start over with Moses. Moses interceded successfully in their behalf, but not before we are given a glimpse of the tremendous effort with which God holds back His hand from judgment.

God really, really cares about us. His great heart is broken by the wickedness He must endure every day. He longs to end the conflict and see justice reign on earth. It would only take a word from Him.

But He waits.

So His patience is seen as indifference; His long-suffering viewed as impotence. His silence is interpreted as nonexistence.

And still He waits.

He waits because it gives Him no pleasure to destroy His creation. We are so very much His. He longs for His long-lost world to understand this. As it burns, He continues to reach out to us with the gift of life.

Think He doesn't feel our pain? Look at His hands.

It takes a big man to exercise self-control under ridicule and abuse. It takes a big God to do this while carrying the entire weight of mankind's folly until all have heard of His immense love.

Don't be discouraged by what you see happening around you. The day is coming when all the earth will hear His voice. He has sworn by His own name that in that day, the earth will be filled with His glory. He will wipe our tears away, and justice will reign.

Until then, we can believe that God cares about the suffering. He is very much at work in our lives, healing and strengthening and comforting all who cry out to Him. With us, He yearns for the day when His glory is released.

...and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes;

 and there will no longer be any death;

there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain;

the first things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4

Living in the Shadows

As the LORD lives, 

what the LORD says to me,

that I shall speak.

1 Kings 22:14

It was a war council of the highest level. The two kings sat in royal splendor as they debated the wisdom of a preemptive strike on their common enemy. Finally, before a decision was made, four hundred advisers were called in to give the word of God.

The prophets clamored for attention as they unanimously predicted a stunning victory in battle. King Ahab of Israel was satisfied. But King Jehoshaphat of Judah was a man of discernment. Unconvinced by the multitude of platitudes offered, he asked, "Is there not yet a prophet of the LORD here, that we may inquire of him?"

In fact, one prophet was indeed missing from the four hundred in the council. One lone man of God named Micaiah sat in prison, as he had every day since he incurred the wrath of Ahab. An officer was sent to get Micaiah. He warned him, "Behold now, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king. Please let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably."

Don't rock the boat. Just say what you need to say to get by. There's no need to cause trouble for yourself. 

But Micaiah couldn't do that, because God had reached Micaiah first. Deep down in that stinking hole of his existence, he had already been visited by a greater King. Micaiah had the answer for Ahab before he was asked the question.

The answer was a warning:  To go into battle was to die.

His words were met with ridicule. King Ahab commanded that Micaiah be returned to prison and fed sparingly with bread and water until Ahab's safe return from battle.

This was not good news for Micaiah. For all he knew, he would rot in prison, because Ahab was not going to return safely. Instead, he would be brought down by a random arrow that struck him in a joint of his armor.

And so Micaiah emerged from oblivion and returned there just as quickly.

Obscurity is a great purifier. A person can endure almost anything except to be overlooked. The pressure to free himself from prison must have been intense. But though he lived in the shadows, he heard and obeyed the Word of God - and his name has endured for thousands of years since. With the exception of one man, the four hundred prophets who pandered to a king's ego remain nameless to this day, their fifteen minutes of fame long expired.

Was Micaiah ever freed? No one knows. But these days, when I ponder my own entrapment in a world of intolerance and strife, I yearn for the courage to exist in the shadows rather than live a lie. 

As the sun sets on this age, the demand to conform to a Godless worldview grows more intense. It would seem so much easier to simply tell society what it wants to hear, rather than to speak the truth and bear the consequences. As darkness closes in, I pray for the strength to reply with Micaiah, "What the LORD says to me, that I shall speak."

I thank God for giving us Micaiah. I'm grateful for his determination to be true to the Word of God, despite the cost. His life, lived largely in the shadows, was the preparation for and postscript to one glorious moment when he became part of the holy story we call the Bible.

May his example remind us that life in the pit is only temporary, if painful. Loyalty is rewarded in the eternity to come and today, as God walks with us and speaks to us things that common kings cannot know.

If you continue in My word, 

then you are truly disciples of Mine;

and you will know the truth,

and the truth will make you free.

John 8:31-32

The Child Bride and the "Craddle" Robber

40 years is something to crow about!

It slipped up on me without fanfare this week. I knew it was coming, but only this week I just really, actually realized that on Sunday I will have been married for forty years.  

Forty years, for crying out loud. Nearly a lifetime. Where did the years go?

At the tender age of eighteen, I was practically a child bride on that sweltering day in July of 1972. My groom was twenty-three. It seemed fitting that he played softball for a college recreational team dubbed "The Craddle Robbers."

Yes, I know. They meant to write Cradle, but being the serious young intellectuals they were, the guys had some team shirts printed up and played their games with Craddle proudly emblazoned on their chests. They never knew.

July 29, 1972

Armed with that college education, my husband earned a living first at the local ammunition plant, then as a builder. I embarked enthusiastically first upon homemaking, then motherhood. Together we built a home, both symbolically and literally. Our modest log home was built by Aaron in the evenings and weekends after long days at work. I sanded, stained, painted, and filled our new little house with our belongings and five children.

Somewhere before the house was finished, God began a new kind of building. Before we actually moved out of our 10 by 50 foot, lavender and white trailer house, Aaron and I gave our lives to Christ.

In 1982, God called me to homeschool our children. What a looney, amazing, blessed decision!  In the beginning I confess I was tiffed at God for putting something so hard on me when I had enough to do just getting through a day with a big family. It didn't take long, though, before I was hooked on phonics and learning with my own children as I grew up with them.

This HAS to be the nineties.  Look at those clothes.

Aaron supported me through twenty-four years of homeschooling, graduating all five children by 2006.

Our eldest daughter's wedding in 1995

We spent our honeymoon in July of 1972 in Canada. Ironically, we never returned to Canada until July of 1997, when our middle son, Kevin, suffered a spinal cord injury in Lethbridge and was airlifted to Calgary.

Twenty-five years of marriage, 1997.  Photo courtesy Saborah Studios

We spent our twenty-fifth anniversary at Kevin's bedside. My only request of God to celebrate our anniversary was for Kevin to be well enough to be released from intensive care to begin rehab. This God graciously granted. Kevin was transferred to the rehab hospital July 28th. Late on the evening of July 29th, Aaron and I ate lukewarm Chinese food with some friends at a Chinese place as the servers vacuumed and cleaned tables around us and waited for us to finish so they could close. 

The family gathered in 2006 for the graduation of our youngest daughter, Grace from homeschool

It was also at the rehab hospital I met our first granddaughter, Rebekah. She was born in Brazil the month before Kevin's accident. They flew up to the states as soon as they could, and we held Bekah for the first time at the nurses' station outside Kevin's room.

Thankfully, Vanessa's birth in 2000 was a much happier occasion. She was also born in Brazil, though, so she was older before Aaron and I got to meet her.

In 2008, our eldest son married a wonderful young woman named Rachel. She has been a joy and blessing!

The family together in 2010

 The fifteen years since that awful silver anniversary have been amazingly short. They have been filled with the worst kind of heartache and the best kind of God's comfort as we walk through a long night together and await the dawn.

There has been much loss. But I realize that there has been much greater gain. The smaller and weaker we have felt, the more we have leaned on the power and grace of our God. He has brought us through places I can't even talk about, much less could have conquered on my own.

There is no one I would have rather walked through this world with than my wonderful "craddle" robber. He has been my protector, deep love, and friend for all these years. Here's to the next forty!

Our favorite place is the coast. Any coast.

Profiles in Courage: Molly the Pony

Molly

Molly was one of the many animals displaced by the wrath of hurricane Katrina in 2005. She was taken in by Kaye Harris, but she suffered an added tragedy when another displaced animal, a pit bull, mauled her on her jaw, abdomen, and legs. The right leg was the worst. She received emergency treatment and most of her injuries healed. But the right leg could not be saved. Kaye Harris' veterinarian recommended Kaye put Molly down.

But Kaye had watched Molly adapt to the dead leg as she healed from the other wounds. She already knew how to walk, lie down, and get up using three legs. Her tenacity moved Kaye. Like New Orleans, Molly was a survivor. Kaye appealed to the veterinarian to help Molly get a prosthesis for her right leg. 

They found help at the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Rustin Moore was skeptical but was swayed when he met Molly and saw her will to live. Molly came to be one of the few horses to overcome the challenges of amputation and live with a prosthesis.                       

As Molly recovered and adapted to her prosthesis, it occurred to Kaye that Molly was a Katrina comeback story.  She was a bit of good news and inspiration to a region that had suffered much loss. Kaye began taking Molly to hospitals and granted media interviews to tell Molly's story. Since then, Molly has become an ambassador for amputees and an encouragement to those suffering from disabilities.

Molly is now the mascot for Kids and Ponies Foundation. You can read more about Molly and the Kids and Ponies Foundation by visiting http://www.myspace.com/mollythepony

Today Molly travels to encourage others with disabilities.

Molly also helps others understand disabilities better.

Molly is featured in these books.

Photos courtesy Kaye Harris

About Song in the Night

I've been meeting a lot of new people online lately. It's been fun to talk to people from around the world and discover just how many inspiring stories are out there. God's on the move in a big way.

If you're new to Song in the Night, here's a bit of our story:

I'm a wife, mom, and grandma who has been kicked out of the nest of my comfort zone in several ways over the years. As a young mother of five, I was called by God in 1982 to begin homeschooling our school-aged children.

It was a crazy, fringy sort of thing to do in those days. I didn't know ANYBODY else who homeschooled back then. That was probably because it was illegal in Idaho at the time, so anyone nutty enough to do it kept a low profile. But it was the hard work of homeschoolers in Idaho and across the country who finally earned the attention of lawmakers and earned its legitimacy.

I finally graduated the last child in 2006. But years earlier, in 1997, a new challenge had been presented to us. Our middle son, Kevin, suffered a devastating spinal cord injury while on a youth ministry trip to Canada. He was declared "another Christopher Reeve," and the presiding doctor urged us to pull the plug. Kevin, however, had no plans to die, and we were not inclined to make him. God miraculously provided a way for us to fly Kevin back to the U.S. in a chartered Lear jet, accompanied by medical personnel.

But his challenges were far from over. He nearly died twice after arriving in the U.S. A long recovery process was accompanied by an intense training program for us to become his caregivers. In the meantime, God began a new and unexpected healing in Kevin that resulted in his regaining more neurological function than was ever expected. He is still disabled, but he has weaned off the vent except to sleep and can move every part of his body to some extent. He can even walk with help.

He has been home with us since rehab. His extensive health needs have compelled me to become first a CNA, and most recently, a licensed practical nurse. We now run a certified family home licensed by the state to care for him.

So for a while, I was a homeschooler AND a full-time caregiver. Talk about crazy.

In 2008, we released the story of Kevin's injury in Canada and God's work in our lives through his brokenness. Song in the Night is available in hardcover from Amazon.com or songinthenight.net.

Today, I continue to write, Kevin and his brother Daniel have the computer graphics and animation studio dragonflycore.com, and Kevin has built a popular site for Christian music at CMADDICT.com . 
Our eldest daughter is a second-generation homeschooler to our two granddaughters.

As a family, we strive to serve God and allow Him to display His awesome power through our weakness.

As you navigate through 'Til Dawn Comes, you will find that we are all about LIFE. Whether it is the encouragement of those raising children, caring for aged and disabled loved ones, or advocacy for those who are pre-born or living with disabilities, we celebrate the amazing gift of a beating heart with which to honor our Creator.

I also regularly post reviews of books and movies connected with disabilities, suffering, parenting, and homeschooling. Check out the labels for posts on subjects you are most interested in.

I'm glad to get to know you. Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments.

Blessings,

Pam and family

The Vision

Recently my daughter Grace put together a YouTube video for SongintheNight.net. It beautifully expresses the calling of Song in the Night to promote the gift of life in our world. It is our prayer you will be inspired and encouraged by The Vision.  

Guest Blog by Samantha Thorson

If you read Never Underestimate Jesus, you learned about a very special answer to prayer in our lives.  You are in for a treat in meeting this amazing young woman of God.  Samantha is a program intern at a Christian camp on the Oregon coast.  She is also my niece and one of my great joys.  Today I have the honor of having her as a guest on 'Til Dawn Comes.  I'm sure you'll be refreshed and blessed by her honesty and faith.

Faithful, Faithful God

Good evening, dear souls about to read these words.  I want to invite you into my life as it is right now, I hope that's okay.  My dearest auntie Pam asked me to write something for her blog, and I wanted to write something personal.  Thus, I invite you to brew some tea, get cozy in your chair, and enter my world and my thoughts for a few moments.

It is a quiet evening here in my home.  A candle is burning - the aroma of mangoes and papaya swim around my nose.  My living room is lit with a few lamps setting a cozy mood.  I can barely hear the wind blowing, the sound of the ocean is a dull, distant roar; perhaps the loudest thing is the clacking of my laptop's keys as my fingers type out my thoughts.  This day and the majority of the previous four days have all been very quiet.  I became quite sick Tuesday night, and now this day being Saturday, I am only now on the road to recovery.  In more ways than one these have been long, monotonous days spent horizontal in bed.  When I am honest, it is perhaps my soul that has needed this pit stop on my journey even more than my body (rest assured, my body also needed it.)

You have the setting, now onto my thoughts.

Life in full time camping ministry as an intern is quite busy.  There are always projects on my to-do list that need my attention.  Cabins need to be cleaned, dishes washed, brochures created and mailed out, youth pastors need to be called, e-mails must be sent, data needs to be stored one way or the other, our summer programs need planning and, of course, the long list continues.  Don't get me wrong, it can be pretty glamorous, too.  I live on the Oregon coast and get to see God move.  Who wouldn't love that?

As any Christian knows, the daily act of picking up one's cross and following Christ is both a heavy and a light burden.  It is pure joy to be here, I know without a doubt that God has called me to this enchanting world.  On this earth to truly experience, understand, appreciate the good, we must tango with the bad.  The bad I dance with these days is my flesh.

My aunt Pam's words in her blog post, Never Underestimate Jesus, resonated keenly with me.  I, too, know that trip through the Columbia River Gorge so very well.  I have been on that road countless times my twenty-two years of life.  It is a well-known path to me.  I can fail to recognize the beauty of that trip because it can be monotonous, draining, as my aunt said, but I can also fail to recognize the beauty because I'm distracted with myself, my flesh.  My anxieties, stresses, worries, burdens, my temptations, distractions, sins, my heartaches, sadness, woes, grief - all of it consumes me from time to time.

It parallels my life here.  Ministry is fraught with things that cause anxiety, stress, worry, burden, temptation, distraction, sin, heartache, sadness, woe, and grief.  There are troubles all around.  I am constantly distracted by my flesh.  I fail to recognize the beauty all around me - what God is doing; what he generously offers me to be part of.  I forget to remember there's something bigger than all of this, bigger than cleaning toilets, washing dishes, e-mails, programs.  There is a story unfolding here in Rockaway Beach, Oregon, and all around the rest of the world...a story of a broken world being reconciled to its grand creator through a selfless son and savior.  Stop and savor that for a moment...isn't it a wild thought?  It's the Chronicles of Narnia on eighteen thousand cups of coffee.  I love it.  I awaken to that reality from time to time.

Reading what my aunt wrote made me stop, think, and have such an awakening.  The fact that I came to know Jesus Christ as my savior was an answer to her prayers.  I was the product of someone's prayers (well, and obviously so many other things, but you know).  What beauty!  What adventure!  All of heaven sings when a heart and soul is reunited with its Creator.  And yet how quickly my flesh forgets, how easily distracted I am by the world.  But it's okay, in a way.  We do get distracted; we get consumed by other things; we forget abut the grander scheme of things.  But when we remember the adventure, when we have those moments that draw us into the Kingdom of Heaven, when we catch those glimpses of eternity it is all the more glorious for the time we've spent listless, distracted, monotonous, and horizontal in bed.  I do sometimes tire of this flesh and this world, I do sometimes tire of ministry and camp, and I do sometimes tire of the same old scenery on the same old road that I have seemed to travel so many times.

But then I set myself aside and I commune with the Holy one of ancient days and I awaken.

My salvation was an answer to my aunt's prayer.  The ministry I am doing is a dream I had for three years come to fruition.  This cozy, quiet, perhaps monotonous evening in my home is a precious pit stop on my journey along a familiar, yet ever surprising road.  What an awakening.  What a world.  What an adventure.  What a beautiful gorge.  What a faithful, faithful God.