The Bare Necessities of Life: Friends and Chocolate

NOTE: This magazine-length article is a bit longer than my regular post, originally published in Reflections January 2009. Enjoy!

Most of us lead hectic lives. It just seems to be the way the world is spinning these days. And when life gets crazy, we often have difficulty developing and maintaining close friendships.

This is dangerous, ladies. Neglecting our inherent need to socialize could be harmful to our health, almost as damaging as life without chocolate.

Face it, what else makes a woman feel better when she is cycling through her hormones? Chocolate and a good talk with a sweet sister. Which brings me to my point: friends are like chocolate. You can live without them, but who really wants to?

Friends are the chocolate chips in the cookie of life. Like chocolate, friends give us pleasure. They share the good times and the bad. “Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend…” [Proverbs 27:9]. I once heard someone say, “The only thing better than a good friend, is a good friend with chocolate.”

Of course, chocolate doesn’t excite all as much as it does most. You may be a chip gal, or a new-pair-of-shoes lady; however, scientists discovered that phenylethyamine, also known as the “love drug,” is released in our brains when we eat chocolate. This is the very same chemical that gives us that feeling of being in love. And consuming chocolate takes a lot less effort than a romance, though overindulgence can result in similar mood swings.

Chocolate comes in different flavors: white, dark and traditional. It is also used to cover nuts and raisins…apply these analogies to your friends however you wish, but don’t blame me if they get upset with you. Regardless of the richness, texture or hue, all chocolate, like all friendships, serve their purposes in life. From acquaintances to comrades, associates to sidekicks, attendants to benefactors, companions to confidantes, the Lord brings people into our lives to share its times and seasons.

True friendships are among the many wonderful blessings of those who belong to the Body of Christ. As believers, we find ourselves filling many different roles in the lives of others, a reciprocal arrangement that benefits our lives, as well. The same friend we celebrated with last week, may lend us a shoulder to cry on tomorrow. The person we counseled on a family matter, may be the one who has the right advice for our ministry situation. As the old proverb goes, “one hand washes the other.”

Throughout the year my husband battled cancer, my sisters in the Lord came to my rescue. While I was consumed with the demands of attending him, my church family supported me. They worked out a schedule and brought meals to my home. My laundry washed, my groceries bought, my son diapered, and my daughter’s hair brushed—different women pulled together to pull me through a very difficult season of life. As I served in my church the years prior to the trauma, I never dreamed I would find myself and my family dependant on others in such a dramatic way.

No one knows with certainty the troubles and challenges that lay ahead—another good reason to invest in the lives of others. For the joy of relationships, yes, but in addition, we can not anticipate when we may need to make an emergency withdrawal. If no deposits have been made into our friendship accounts, where will we draw from?

I learned the most about true friendship when in desperate personal need others befriended me:

• A real friend knows when to keep her mouth closed and her arms opened (think of Job’s friends).
• A real friend knows when to say “I love you” instead of “you should…”
• And a real friend knows when you need a pat on the back or a swift kick to the backside. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend…” [Proverbs 27:6].

I have needed both pats and kicks, and I have given both to others. This is real life, ladies, and we have to be real with each other if we’re really going to make it. “If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” [Ecclesiastes 4:10NIV].

Beyond tantalizing our taste buds, chocolate washes endorphins and serotonin over our brains. Endorphins lessen pain and decrease stress while serotonin works as an antidepressant. The relationships God brings into our lives absolutely provide these powerful coping mechanisms. Sharing life with friends lessens pain, decreases stress and helps shift perspective from selfishness to selflessness—an outlook that fights depression with great results, better than most chemicals on the market, and without negative side effects.

We all go through lonely seasons, sometimes while surrounded by people. If your heart is lonely, I encourage you to take your focus off looking for a friend. Instead, look for a way to serve others, and God will bring friends into your life.

A friend is defined as someone you know and trust, someone you have affection for and who provides cooperation or assistance. The Latin, Greek and English histories of the word all go back to the word love, to be a friend is to love. Applying this to Proverbs 18:24, we could read the verse “A man that hath friends (love) must shew himself friendly (loving).”

Have you ever noticed the Lord used the feminine gender to define love’s attributes? Take a look at the famous love chapter. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” [1 Corinthians 13:4-7].

First, try this exercise. Reread the passage, and wherever you see the word “charity,” substitute the word “friendship.” If you are struggling in a relationship, you could use this as a template for prayer. “Lord, help me love my friend by showing kindness to her, help me believe the best in her, help me not be easily provoked or oversensitive to her, and so on.”

Secondly, did you note the phrase “seeketh not her own?” I never caught that in previous readings, but come to think of it, I don’t know any men named Charity. Perhaps the Lord assigned the feminine gender because a woman’s love can be very emotion driven. God knows we are sensitive to our environments, again like chocolate. According to the atmosphere, chocolate can melt or freeze into brittle bars. But if you let chocolate sit in room temperature awhile, it will come back to its regular solid form.

In the times we feel unloving or unfriendly, we would do well to take those emotions to the Word and let them sit there until they get back to where they need to be. I read somewhere, “I am a woman of many moods, and they all require chocolate.” True friendship is to love. Love covers [Proverbs 17:9]. Love gives [John 15:13]. A friend is a gift from God, a gift to unwrap and enjoy over time, a gift to share with others.

2 Chronicles 7:14-15

I was asked by a respected leader to "read carefully and prayerfully" 2 Chronicles 7:14-15. I meditated on the passage a couple of days, and decided to share my thoughts here. I hope you are encouraged as you read.

THE BACKDROP
Solomon and the Israelites just spent seven days dedicating the new temple – with prolific sacrifices, music, etc. On the eighth day all the people joined together in a solemn assembly.

THE WORD
The Lord came to Solomon the night following the assembly [v. 13] saying...if I (God)sent famine, pestilence or drought, AND ("and" added in place of the semicolon) [v. 14] IF My (God's) people (His own people – the people on whom His Name is called) will:

1) humble themselves (isn’t pride the root of all sin?)
2) pray (spiritually commune with God)
3) seek My (God's) face (not His hands...what He can do...but Him)
4) turn from their wicked ways (you and me making personal choices to change)...

...then I (God) will hear their prayers (our prayers to remove pestilence, famine and drought?), and will forgive their sins, and heal their land.

REVELATION
One night, praying at the altar, I don’t even recall what I was praying about, the Lord spoke a clear and surprising word to me. He said, “You are the land.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know, the land…What did I make Adam from?”

“The dust of the earth,” I thought.

“You are land,” He said.

It clicked. I got it. I’ve been involved with the National Day of Prayer for several years, and 2 Chronicles 7:14 is a key verse used in the organization. I’ve sung songs about it, organized events around it, prayed it, etc., but in a moment, God gave me revelation.

Adam was made from the dust of the earth, and we are his offspring. We are dust—land. And if we will follow the instructions in this pivotal verse, we will see the PERSONAL healing God wants to bring into our “lands”…our hearts…our minds…our bodies…our emotions.

When our “lands” are healed (you and me), we will impact the communities in which we live. When we are His, we ARE salt and light, and God will use us to bring this same restorative message into the lives of others, who will in turn receive their healing and the affect will ripple into the entire world.

We pray for healing for our nation…our country, but when God speaks of nations, He speaks of people. It won’t matter if abortion is the law of the land if the people of the land reject the evil practice. People found a way to commit this heinous crime even when it was illegal, but with a true healing in the lives of individuals, our nation could see a huge decline in the slaughter of innocent babies.

The fight to uphold the sanctity of marriage (laughably promoted by a church with a divorce rate equal to the world’s), will be preserved when hearts are healed, delivered from selfishness and relationships restored.

And the list goes on…

PROMISE
Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place [v.15].

What I love about this verse is that God responds to humility and obedience with an ever “present tense” promise. He said His eyes would be open (not opened – a one-time deal), and his ears attent (not attend – attending as something begun and completed). He’s saying to me that He will continually be looking and listening – alert to our requests…when we posture ourselves in humility before Him and look into His holy countenance…when we reject sin in all its forms (even laziness, apathy, judgmentalism, etc.) and turn to God, He turns attentively to us and our requests. What an amazing God we serve.

Christmas Potpourri

I love Christmas--the sights, the sounds, the smells. We're decking the halls, the walls, and the alls, as we do every year, accompanied by carols of old. I get rather nostalgic at Christmas. I cry when I take out special ornaments: gifts from loved ones passed, remembering baby's first Christmas and trips taken over the years.

The highlight of my decorating is an outdoor nativity. Not a cheesy plastic light-up one that blows over in the wind: beautiful three-foot resin figures of Joseph and Mary watching over Jesus resting in a manger. A few years ago my husband built a stable for the little family, and we shine a spotlight on it as the centerpiece of our front lawn. We've never won the subdivision decorating contest, but it makes us happy.

Thinking today about the holiday and its wonderful smells brought to mind some research I recently completed. One of the characters in my novel made potpourri for her sister's wedding. You know potpourri...that fragrant flowery hodgepodge people set out in crystal bowls or smooth wooden cradles. You probably even know the word potpourri is French, but do you know the literal translation of the word is "rotten pot?" It's true!

Potpourri is made of a conglomeration of different things: some pretty, some plain, all assembled to bring delightful fragrance into our lives. I found the process of making potpourri interesting and (no surprise if you know me) the natural process of creating the mix an analogy of the way God often works in our lives. I won't expound on every point, but ask you to consider how each step in the process applies to your life situations and spiritual development. So put on your spiritual thinking cap and read on.

Cultivating

One common factor among all the elements used to make potpourri is their origin: all come from living plants--God's creation. Nothing makes itself. Every component is part of God's plan. Before any work begins assembling the mix, lengthy steps are first taken to cultivate, grow, harvest and prepare the elements.

For the purpose of this missive, let's look at rose potpourri. To grow nice roses, the maker spends hours in the hot sun tending plants and running the risk of pricked fingers and dirt (maybe even manure) under fingernails. Pests must be kept under control. Every rose grower knows which bugs are prone to attack their plants and takes steps to ward off destructive insects.

After planting, fertilizing, and pruning, blooms are harvested and preserved. Those maintaining their shape after drying look lovely in the final arrangement, but no buds or petals are wasted.

Drudgery

Although one of potpourri's main ingredients is fragrant flowers, many of the components aren't quite as attractive or sweet smelling on their own. They all, however, serve their purposes: retaining the scent of the oil being prepared by the maker. In addition to flowers, other items such as juniper wood shavings, pine cones, rose hips, cinnamon bark, and orris root are collected. Some components, like orris root, require more effort to gather. This root comes from iris plants and must be excavated from the soil. It's a bit more work than snipping a flower, but the contribution to the pot is worth the effort. Orris root absorbs and retains essential oil in ways flower petals cannot and is a valuable fixative or base ingredient.

Like the commonplace components of potpourri, the common days and experiences of life are the base of reality, the primary ingredient that holds the fragrant memories of special times long after they have passed.

Hot Water

To scent potpourri, the maker prepares rose oil that smells wonderful and is also used as a healing agent. Before the sun rises, an abundance of roses are harvested by hand then put through a cooking process that pulls oil from the petals. The oil floats, then is skimmed off the top. Pounds of rose petals, up to 60,000 roses, are used to make only one ounce of the precious essential oil.

This labor intensive process requires plentiful resources. The yield may seem small, but it is potent. God uses difficulties, times of heat and pressure, to create fragrant, healing oil in our lives.

Shelving & Shaking

After all the ingredients are prepared, they are placed inside an airtight container where they must remain for several weeks. In this closed environment, separate from any outside influence, the elements are shelved and left to mingle and decay.

From time to time, the maker shakes the containers, mixing the contents to assure even distribution of the oil. If a container were to be opened prematurely, the results would be less than pleasing, releasing a rotten smell instead of something lovely. It would be a shame to discard all this work prematurely when just a little more time is required to make something beautiful.

The maker waits until the time is right, when everything is ready, then opens the lid, and sets out the aromatic mix that fills the senses of those around, a sweet smelling blend that perfumes their world.

Just Beautiful!

Like the process of making potpourri, God is at work in our lives. If you're setting out bowls of potpourri this Christmas, or just reminiscing as we so often do during the holidays, tuck this little illustration in your heart. Remember that no matter the season or situations we face, God is with us, making something beautiful. The perfect mix of flowery days, common experiences and trials are being amalgamated into a fragrant potpourri that will bring a sweet smell into the lives of others and create a fragrant offering unto the Lord.

If it seems you're always in hot water...well, that's one way to make sure you're keeping things clean, and the oil will eventually rise to the top if you keep your petals in the kettle. If it seems you're in the middle of a rotten pot, remember that God makes all things beautiful in His time [Ecclesiastes 3:11]. And if you're on the shelf or in the middle of a shaking, remember God knows the perfect timing for your situation. Just as He set the time for His entrance into Bethlehem and prepares to return again, God orders our days and circumstances.

Merry Christmas!

Facing the Rapids

Today, as I prayed for our nation, I felt distressed. I likened the turmoil we currently face politically, socially, economically, morally and spiritually to a rushing stream. I felt our great country drifting down turbulent waters, scrambling, without finding even a protruding branch to grab onto for safety.

And in that instant, when in prayer I gazed at the banks looking for something to hold onto, the Lord impressed me with this thought.

"The stream is in my hand."

Peace rushed in where concern swirled moments before, and I laughed out loud. First, because it's amazing God cares enough to meet a simple human being in a time of prayer. Second, because it's so true. His plan has been established since the beginning of time and He measured the oceans in the palm of His hand.

Intercede for godly leadership, work to support good candidates, vote, then leave it in God's hands. It's a good plan and a safe place to be.

Breaking Away

The following poem was written several years ago while on the eighth floor of the Karmanos Cancer Center. My husband, afflicted with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, lay in the hospital bed. I sat looking out the window at the people walking by, busy with their lives, running here and there.

I watched a bird pump hard to lift off the ground then rise in flight, and this poem came to me as I watched it soar above the ground. I hope it is a blessing to you.

"Breaking Away"
March 14, 1997

Breaking away from the earth
Soaring high above
Looking down on the world that's kept me bound
As I fly on the wings of God's love

The effort exerted to break free
Is the most difficult part of the flight
But then I glide on invisible currents
That lift me from height to height

Carry me, Oh Wind of God
High above this land
That I might see a new perspective
And understand your plan

Then return me safely back to Earth
To use the lessons learned
And share the visions You impart
With those who wait for Your return

Castles of Sand and Stone

Thank you for indulging me in a poetic muse...the result of two trips: one to a Cape Cod beach and a second to Switzerland's Chateau de Chillon made famous by Lord Byron's poem, The Prisoner of Chillon.

Ocean greeted coast with noisy kisses
then dashed away, a shy lover
withdrawing from sandy cheek
into a crowd of waves and priestly rocks
escaping into the blue horizon

Low tide’s receding waves sculpted the shore—
damp dunes and sparkling pools
plumed with festive sprays of seaweed
and a garland of my footprints
draped indifferently across the sand

Meandering, humming, I drifted
wandering the shoreline expanse
until a collapsing sand castle
invited me to linger,
to remember a castle far away

A massive citadel by the sea
robed in ancient stone
capped in peaks and towers
she gazed across a shining glass lake
to majestic, snow-topped alps

Haunted by lives that once filled her halls
her rooms remembered
the births, banquets, battles and blood:
the price paid for her incarnation
the wars waged to keep her

Where royalty once dwelt
now a tourist booth stands
Cross the moat on her drawbridge
Gain entrance inside her once-guarded gates—
for a sum of Swiss francs

Centuries have come and gone at her doors:
years compiled of days
days made up of moments
filled with the living and passing of life
its joys and its sorrows

One castle made of sand
One of stone
The glory of each eroded
by time and circumstance
centuries and purpose

Song spilled out once more
Words replayed in mind
as Truth resounded in spirit
The tune I breathed on the beach I walked
I once sang in castle walls

Kings and kingdoms all pass away…
Kings and kingdoms all pass away…
And yet, God’s kingdom remains
How insignificant man’s trials and triumphs
How magnificent omniscient God.

And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. [Revelation 19:6]

Learning to be a Princess

Growing up, I didn’t know I was a princess. I was 21 years old before I discovered the truth – I am a member of the royal family.

All those long years, I felt unloved and unwanted which severely affected my self-esteem. I entered adulthood with skewed perceptions: believing I wasn’t anyone special – just one of the middle children in a poor, rural family. Part of a nondescript amalgamation forged in the crucible of a young woman’s unwanted pregnancy that dissipated in a bad divorce when I was eleven years old.

The new “moms” and “dads” the years brought into my life (and there were several)—they didn’t know I was a princess either. They couldn’t have, or they would have treated me differently, I’m sure. If they’d only known a King’s daughter was in their care, perhaps a different story might have played out.

My age has more than doubled since the fateful day of my discovery. I write of the event on the evening of my 43rd birthday – a happy day spent with my husband, children and friends, concluded around a laughter-filled table with a cupcake-shaped balloon floating over my head. Sitting in the restaurant, my thoughts wondered back to earlier times.

Even though I hadn’t known Him yet, I realized the King had always watched over me. He saw my times of loneliness. He watched when I suffered disappointments and pain. He knew my desperation and observed my fearful flailing when I was a young child drowning – suffocating beneath lake waters before strong hands pulled me from certain death. And then the frantic splashing and beating against life itself as I grew up and began drowning in seas of different sorts.

But all that changed one fall day in 1987.

I always loved my Daddy. We didn’t spend a lot of time together, he often hid out in his workshop and wore its fragrance of sawdust and oil. Bobby Eudell was a good, kind man joined with my mother to bring a new life into the world. March 6 I was born a member of the Yates family, but when I was 21, I discovered my Father, the One who gave me life, was the King of all.

And He wanted me. He still does. Really. He says my life has value and purpose…and not just in the things I do for Him…but because I am His.

Even after learning I was a princess, I still fought the feelings I’d grown up with: undesired and undesirable. A lifetime of programming refused to give way to a new paradigm without time and adjustment. Twenty-two years later, I give thanks to God for gently aligning my malformed thought life to my life’s reality. He took what was (the past that shaped me) and changed it into what is (my present and future with Him).

The seasons and events of my youth are still part of who I am – a backdrop providing high contrast to the joy God has given me in recent years. I liken my past to a black velvet display in a jeweler’s showroom that highlights the brilliance of dazzling gemstones. Diamonds that formed beneath the soil, were mined, polished and shaped, then set and displayed. A diamond's many different facets, created by the pressure of the earth upon dark coal, remind me of how God uses our different life situations to create planes in our lives that reflect new qualities revealed or learned through the living of each experience.

One family night, my kids borrowed a DVD from the library. We plugged into our TV Guardian-filtered player and watched “Princess Diaries” – a cute movie for the most part. The heroin lifted from an obscure nerdiness transformed over time into a beautiful, competent ruler. Under the tutelage of the queen, awkwardness gave way to elegance. Indecisiveness yielded to bold decision-making birthed in compassion and the realization that her position provided the opportunity for her to make a difference in the lives of those in her realm. Beyond learning she was a princess, she learned to be a princess, living out her calling to her kingdom for her time and purpose.

If the Lord should mercifully give me another 22 years on this earth, I pray I will be kingdom-minded as well, living out in my time His purpose for my life. On a deeper level, I desire to see my focus shift from serving Him to simply being His. It’s the result of an intimate relationship that brings true fruitfulness and new life.

I am a princess. I am His.