Everyday Faith

July 19, 2015 by: The Domestic Fringe

When God Fails You

Have you ever felt like God failed you? Maybe you prayed really hard for something, had faith, and believed God was going to do a miracle for you, but He didn’t. He could have cured your disease, but He didn’t. He could have given you a new job, but He didn’t He could have provided the money you needed, but He didn’t. He could have spared your child’s life, but He didn’t. He could have kept you from getting into that accident, but He didn’t. Sometimes we’re in trouble, and we think God should bail us out. After all, the Bible is riddled with miracles. We’ve heard testimony of how God has worked in our neighbor’s life, or how He transformed our friend’s circumstances. We believe God should give us our miracle, and fix our problems. Have you ever felt like that? I have. I taught 5th & 6th graders in VBS this week. Our theme was Journey off The Map, and we were taught to follow our guide, listen to our guide, and trust our guide. If you’re out on a journey, you’ll need a guide, a good one, and you’ll to put your faith in that guide, because he knows what he’s doing. God is our guide. Our lessons centered on the book of Daniel in the Bible. We learned how Daniel purposed in his heart to obey God. We also saw how at one point in his life, he was punished for his faith in God, more specifically for worshiping his God instead of King Darius. Daniel was thrown in a den of lions, and yet, God spared his life. It’s one of those miracles in the Bible that we love. There were also three other men who chose to worship their God instead of bowing to a ninety foot tall golden idol. Their names were Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego. They were thrown into a fiery furnace, a furnace whose heat was turned up seven times hotter than usual. It was so hot, the flames killed the guards who threw these three faithful men into the fire.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whome we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up. – Daniel 3:16-18

These verses really hit me this week, because all too often I get an attitude with God, especially when He doesn’t do what I want Him to do, or what I’m positive He should do. I get it in my head that somehow I know better than the God of this universe. These three men stood before the king, who held their lives in his hands, and they said, our God can save us, and we believe He will; however, even if He doesn’t, we’re going to serve Him anyway. God does not owe us our miracle. He may choose to bless me, save me, prosper me, advance me, but even if He doesn’t, I’m going to serve Him anyway. Are we at the place where we can say that, or are we still bargaining with God. “If you heal me, I’ll serve you for the rest of my life.” “If I win the lottery, I’ll give half the money to the church.” “If you bless me, I’ll pass it on.” “If you only just get me out of this terrible situation, I’ll go to church.” We bargain with God all the time, and then we have the nerve to get mad at Him when He doesn’t come through with His end of our selfish deal. God doesn’t owe us a thing. He’s good to us, blesses us beyond anything we can ever deserve, gives us life, and peace, and happiness, because of His goodness. We want things from God. We want to see God do great things. We want the miracles. It’s easy to say that we’ll serve Him if there’s something in it for us. My God is big enough, strong enough, faithful enough to save the day! #truth. But if He doesn’t, I’m going to serve Him anyway. What about you?

Because let’s face it, God knows what He’s doing. Too often we can’t see past our present circumstance, so let’s trust Him, praise Him, and serve Him, whether He comes through with a miracle or not. I know my God can deliver me, but even if not, I will worship Him.

April 18, 2014 by: The Domestic Fringe

Good Friday

When I was a kid, I took piano lessons in school, even though I didn’t have a piano at home. You can imagine how great my practice sessions were without a piano.

One Christmas, I somehow talked my grandparents into buying an electric piano for me to practice on.

Don’t you just love how grandparents are so much more easily swayed than parents?

Parents start running calculations in their head the moment you ask for anything.’

Last week’s report card + the library fine + the increasing food bill + two pairs of outgrown shoes = No.

Grandparents jump right to “Yes!”

It’s so much more fun to ask them for things.

Not only did they buy a piano, but they kept it in their bedroom. See, where I lived, everyone squished their families and their junk into tiny apartments. It was sardine living at its finest.

So, every day after school, I would walk across the street to my grandparent’s house and practice the piano.

If I were them, I’d find an excuse to walk down to the corner store and buy milk, toothpaste, or a pack of chewing gum – anything to get me out of the house and away from my musically challenged noise, but they stayed. In the same room.

Sometimes they would even ask me to play old favorites.

My grandpa always asked me to play “The Old Rugged Cross”. It didn’t matter how many extra notes I mistakenly played, he’d ask for it, and then sit back in his chair with his eyes closed and listen. Sometimes he’d whistle along.

My grandpa was a whistler. When he lost you in store, he’d whistle, and it wasn’t just any whistle. It was grandpa’s certain tune. That’s how we’d find him.

On this Good Friday, all I can think about are the words to that song.

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff’ring and shame;
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.

Refrain:
So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.

Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for me;
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary.

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see,
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.

To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;
Its shame and reproach gladly bear;
Then He’ll call me some day to my home far away,

Where His glory forever I’ll share.

That old hymn, by George Bennard, tells the story of today. Doesn’t it?

Jesus, 100% God and 100% man, made himself a little lower than the angels. He came to die, for me and for you. Without the shedding of His blood on an old rugged cross, there would be no payment for our sin.

Sometimes you hear preachers use the word “remission”. They’d say, “remission of sins”. It’s such an interesting word, because it means, “the cancellation of debt, charge, or penalty”.

Jesus’ death on the cross cancelled out our debt of sin. He took our penalty on himself.

He came to set us free from the bondage of sin.

Good Friday is good, because of the cross.

Without it, there would be no sunrise service on Easter morning. There would be no empty tomb.

Today, I am thankful for the cross.

And, I’m thankful that my grandpa’s memory reminds me to love that old rugged cross.

January 23, 2014 by: The Domestic Fringe

Walking in The Rain

This story first appeared one year and one day ago on Flower Patch FarmGirl’s blog, one of my very favorite blogs. I was her guest and I wrote my story in a tone that would fit the style of her blog. So while it may not sound like me writing, it most certainly is me – pinky promise. I came across it the other day and realized it doesn’t appear anywhere on my blog. That means I’ll lose it. So, today I am sharing it once again.

When Going Means Walking in The Rain

Noah’s Ark – this is what I see every night before I go to bed and every morning when I wake up. This amateur painting on an old cabinet door reminds me of times it rained so hard, I never thought it would stop. I felt like I was drowning, not just me, but my little family too. Some days it took all we had just to keep our heads above water. I think that’s why he painted it for me, to remind me of the rain and the rainbow that follows – the promise of the rainbow.

Sometimes “Going” means walking in the rain and pleading with people to get on the ark. For the love of God and all things sane, just please get on the ark already.

Bo painted me this ark. Just two little letters in a name for a man with such a big heart, and an even bigger drug problem.

He was the elusive guy who we constantly worked to track down. Word in the neighborhood was we needed to talk to him, get him. He was losing his battle with drugs, not just him, but also his wife. And you see, they had these two kids. The kids who had to fend for themselves for days at a time while their father was off on a crack high and their mother locked herself in the bedroom with her pills. For days.

They were the ones God put on our hearts. Go to them. Find them.

When we did find them, our world was turned upside down.

Middle of the night phone calls and piling the babies in the truck, so we can go hunt him down. “Where are we going?” My three-old baby girl would ask.

“Going to find Bo.”

“He’s lost?” She always wanted to know.

“Yes, in a way, he is lost and he needs some help finding his way back home.”

And I would sit in the truck with the phone while my husband pounded down the door of a crack house, only to find he’d moved on already – moved on to the emergency room, our next stop. Then on to jail.

Over and over again. Walking in the rain. Bringing the kids food in the rain. Talking and talking in endless circles until we felt like we were being pulled into a whirlpool.

And then one day, so many days later, more than forty days and forty nights, something happened. That larger than life man with the little name and insurmountable problems fell on his face before Jesus and cried out for forgiveness. First him and then his wife.

The rain didn’t stop though. There is a high price to pay for sin, and we sat as they hauled off his kids. Maybe it was for the best, we hoped. We prayed for the best.

And we kept pleading with them to get on the ark, two by two.

I wish this little family had a happy ending, but sometimes the joy is in the little things – the tears, the brokenness, the reminder of a rainbow. Maybe the going is more for us than them. Maybe it is to remind us that there’s a flood coming and an ark built, and it’s our job to shout “Get on the ark!”.

My little girl still has the wild stuffed cat Bo gave her. She still asks about him, wonders if he ever found his way back home. She reminds us how nice he was, and she walks into my bedroom and looks at the ark.

There’s a rainbow waiting, but first we must walk in the rain.

Are you walking in the rain? Feel free to share your story in the comments.

January 4, 2014 by: The Domestic Fringe

How I Nearly Killed A Missionary

Did I ever tell you about the time I poisoned a missionary?

No?

Funny how some things just slip my mind.

Till this day, I don’t feel bad about it. He was pretty merciless with me. Picked on me constantly, even though he and his sweet family were staying in our house, the Maine house.

If you think I’m bad in the kitchen now, friends, you just don’t know. In my first year of marriage I mastered one dish. If it had a name, it would probably be Explosive Mac. The recipe was pretty simple. Mix up one box of mac & cheese with one can of chili and one package of cut-up hot dogs.

Aren’t you glad you didn’t know me back then?

Now, I may start kitchen fires from time to time and misread the directions on canned soup, but I’ve come a long way in the cooking department.

Back to the missionary…It was a Sunday morning. I really love this, because it could have been a Friday or Saturday, but it was Sunday. I like to think of it as God’s way of saying He’s got my back.

I made a sausage breakfast casserole and served it up hot and steaming. It was cooked well and even tasted good. Score one for me!

We spit-shined our kids, combed our hair, and piled into our separate vehicles to make the hour-long trip to church. For some unknown reason, we were following behind these missionaries and not leading the way. Apparently they had directions.

“Hey, do you think something is wrong with them?” FringeMan asked.

“I don’t know. Do you think they’re running low on gas or something?”

“I hope not, because then we’ll really be stuck.”

Maine roads all look the same. They go on forever. You see barn after barn, field after field, white house after white house, and the occasional moose. Kidding, you only see a moose if you’re really lucky. If he’s standing in the middle of the road and you go boom, you’re not so lucky.

We drove on and the missionary continued to look troubled while he was driving. He kept squirming around and making weird hand gestures at his wife.

One long ride later, we came into a civilized town with a Dunkin Donuts. The missionary flew through the streets and came to a screeching halt in front of Dunkin’s doors. He ran in looking kind of flushed and sweaty, so I assumed he really needed a coffee fix, but what he really needed was a bathroom.

He finally emerged and slowly walked over to our car. My husband rolled down the window and he explained. Seems the breakfast casserole had been slowly erupting in his stomach all morning.

We never laughed so hard, because the night before, he called me a long-tongued heffer.

Yup. God’s got my back.

November 27, 2013 by: The Domestic Fringe

Give with Abandon

I’m one of those people who plow through life stuck in my own little world. Without a doubt, there will be one who says it’s not true, it can’t be. Sadly it is. Each day I walk by people I never see.

Too often I’m consumed with the thirty things going on in my head. I’m one of those people who cannot turn their brain off. It’s difficult for me to settle, to not be preoccupied. My son gets annoyed because I can’t watch a television show without doing something else, anything. When I’m out and about, I’m focused, usually on a mission to accomplish whatever task I set out to do.

I can walk right past you in the street and chances are I may not see you.

It’s a terrible habit, a frame of mind. If I see you and speak to you, it’s because I’m being deliberate. I’m shutting down most of the tabs open in my mind and I’m focusing on you. I don’t do that often enough. I don’t see people enough. I don’t always have the insight to hear their problems, feel their pain, know their need.

This is the season of Thanksgiving. Thanks produces giving. Out of a heart filled with abundance to overflowing, comes the gifts.

I want to have a heart that overflows with love, joy, mercy, goodness, and grace. I want to give my love with abandon. In our world, in this land, we’re just superficial enough to always associate giving with money, but not everyone needs our dollar. Some do and we should give it, but others, what they really need, is so much more than a dirty old piece of paper. They need us. They need us to notice them, to love them.

But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.

~ 1 John 3:17-19

We want the world to know that we’re people of faith. We want them to hear our story, to listen to our truth, but if we don’t see their need and have compassion on them, we can talk all we want and no one will hear. Love is an action word.

If we don’t have love, we have nothing.

I am filled to overflowing with Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for. I can count my thanks on paper, giving each line a number. I can pass the turkey and utter my praise. I can assign each day on the calendar an item worthy of rejoicing. I can shout my thanks from the rooftop and write it on my Facebook status, but out of thanks comes giving.

I want to give with abandon. I want to love fiercely, but loosely , to live with open hands. I want to say it with my lips and show it with my actions.

Happy Thanksgiving friends.

November 7, 2013 by: The Domestic Fringe

Once Portugal Bound, Now America Bound

I am 50% Portuguese, the child of a Portugal born truck driver. My dad came to America when he was a teenager, old enough to retain an accent and thoroughly confuse American sayings. On occasion he’d slip from English into Portuguese all in the same sentence, Ricky Riccardo style.

He drove a milk truck and a limousine. I truly am the milkman’s daughter. This had serious benefits for me as a child. Not only did I get plenty of calcium, but he often traded goods with the chip and bread men. You’d be amazed by the exchange rate of a gallon of milk in New York City. Getting picked-up in a limo wasn’t such a bad perk either.

Unfortunately after several robberies at gunpoint, my father decided he was lactose intolerant. FringeDad now resides in the country of Portugal. Funny thing is, he brought his Bronx accent overseas and everyone knows he’s from New York.

For me, Portugal is a special place.

It’s also special to Micheal and Nina Andrzejewski, missionaries to Portugal.

We met in blogland a long time ago. I introduced you to them when their youngest was still in a stroller. I’ve very much enjoyed getting to know them through the years, and one day when I go visit my father, I’m absolutely, definitely, going to visit them too.

As funny as it seems, I think we bonded over a word that’s not used nearly enough – facade, or fak-aid…whatever!

Now this sweet family is trying to get back home (Nina – pronounced N*ee*na – yup, I screwed that one up, but she forgave me) will explain their trip in today’s interview.

It is my hope and prayer that we, all of us at The Domestic Fringe, will help them get back to the States.

How long have you and your family been in Portugal?

We are nearing the six year mark. Some days it feels like it’s been forever since the seven of us landed on Portuguese soil. It’s these sort of days when everything seems to go wrong and when I may or may not have said the word for ‘condom’ instead of ‘food preservatives’ over lunch with some friends. :/

But other days it seems like only yesterday. When all our Portuguese comes out correctly for the most part and the culture is less frustrating.

What is one thing you love about the country and/or the people of Portugal?

They are family strong. They stick together. Help one another. Raise each others kids. Protect each other at all costs. Now this also makes our jobs more difficult as we are seen as the ‘outsiders’. Not family, and worse even, American with a strange religion.

What do you miss most about the States?

In this order exactly:

1. Family

2. Friends

3. Krispy Kreme

4. Church choirs

5. Wide open highways and large gas guzzling vehicles

Please tell us about your kids, how they picked up the language, where they go to school, etc.

Our kids:

Brooklyn, 14

Faith, 13

Liberty, 11

Trinity, 9

Justice , 7

They all attend local schools. Two are in the elementary in our village. The three oldest are in the Jr/Sr high in a neighboring village.

We are the first Americans these schools have ever had as we are in a very rural area. It was quite a challenge the first few years. But now, they blend in well with no noticeable accents when they speak.

They don’t have any difficulties with the language and are often my ‘go to’ people for help with translating or when I’m stuck in a conversation. All of their work is done in Portuguese and we frequently hear glowing comments about our children’s behavior and work ethic. *proud mom*

You have a fundraiser going on to get you and your family back to America, can you tell us about that? Also, please explain why you are coming home and what “furlough” is for people who may not be familiar with the term.

After nearly 6 years on the field we are looking at a short time of ‘furlough’. For missionaries, this term means a time to pull away and rest. But it also means time to visit supporters in America to give a progress report of the work here in Portugal. We are held accountable to the supporting churches and individuals who have partnered with us.

It’s also a time to eat a doughnut, visit grandma and celebrate 4^th of July on American soil. It’s a time to feel completely and unashamedly American. It’s a time to remind our children who they are and where they’re from. – All these things may sound strange to someone who’s never spent an extended period of time outside of American borders. But there are probably a few of you who understand exactly what I’m talking about.

The fundraiser is to help purchase round trip plane tickets for our family.

We don’t have the funds necessary at this time as our financial support has suffered over the last several years. Missionaries everywhere have suffered.

Please visit the following website to see their financial goal

and how you can give.

http://www.youcaring.com/mission-trip-fundraiser/andrzejewskis-to-america/85826

What are you and your family looking forward to when you all come back “home”?

Each one of us have something different we are looking forward to. You already know mine….I want to hug my family and friends and then eat a doughnut! But after all that, I’m really looking forward to attending church and listening to preaching in English, hearing choirs sing, getting a coffee at a drive thru, dollar stores, dress shopping and just absorbing the American culture. But I’m sure it won’t take long before I’m longing for Portugal again.

I hope you will help this sweet family (with the last name I will never be able to spell) get back to America.

It’s not easy being a missionary. They leave their country, their people, their customs and go to a place where people don’t even necessarily want them. They learn a new language, cook new foods, immerse themselves in another culture all for the sake of someone other than themselves.

They go because they love. They go because someone must go. They go because God asked them to go.

Now, let’s help them come home, for a time, so they can go back again.

Connect with the Andrzejewski family

Blog: CBC Portugal Missions

Twitter: Michael Andrzejewski

Facebook: Michael – Nina Andrzejewski

Will you help?

September 19, 2013 by: The Domestic Fringe

Love is An Action Word

Tonight my daughter told me that her friend is going to be evicted from her home. This girl’s parents don’t have the money for their apartment anymore. If they can’t find someplace to go, they are going to send this little girl to live with her grandfather in Tennessee.

Then my daughter asked if she could move in with us. You know, stay with us until her family could work out other arrangements.

Later my son said he saw that one of our neighbors had two bicycles they weren’t using. He said they once offhandedly mentioned he could use one.

It seems he’s been concocting a plan, a way to get a new boy a bicycle. By new, he means this kid is not only new to his school and the town, but new to the country. He’s from the Philippines. He thought maybe this neighbor with the extra bikes might let this kid use one for a while.

He said, “You know, I think someone should try and be his friend, so I thought it could be me.”

Love is an action word.

My kids remind me of this all the time. They wear their big hearts on their sleeves.

It’s like the time my son brought the boy down the street a bunch of food. It was not a forced “good deed” or a family project. It was him, a twelve-year old boy, seeing a need and doing what he could to fill the need.

I Corinthians 13: 1-3

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

²And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

³And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

I heard these verses preached nearly a year ago and that message is still on my mind.

If we have good deeds, faith, integrity, church membership…you fill in the blank…no matter how good it is, it’s nothing without love.

Faith, the stuff that moves mountains, is nothing without love.

God said it.

And though I bestow all my goods to feel the poor…but have not love, it profits me nothing.

That part gets me.

Does God mean that we can give and still not have love?

I thought giving was an act of love.

But, it’s not always, is it?

So, for the last year, I’ve thought about loving in a very real, tangible way, a way that hurts sometimes. It’s more than just writing a check (although sometimes that’s needed).

It’s about giving myself.

My kids teach me how over and over again.