Here I am again fighting to meet a deadline. As
a child I learned that April hath 30 days, along with June, September, and
November. (I have just recited the rhyme to myself four times as well as
checking the calendar mentally to make sure that my memory serves me correctly.
Sadly, it is true. April doth indeed hath only thirty days which means my
deadline is seven hours away.) I am not surprised that I didn't know that
today was April thirtieth because the last month has been a blur of travel,
teachings, more travel, meetings, more travel, conference, jet lag and so forth.
At one point I woke up on an aeroplane, movie playing on the screen quite close
to my face, surrounded by people I didn't know, and had no idea where I was.
The young Korean flight attendant who appeared through the curtain at that
moment didn't do anything to help. I usually fly SAA, so the unfamiliar
uniforms and appearance of the Emirates crew only added to my sense of
disorientation. This airline prides itself on the diversity of languages on
offer and on this particular leg of my return journey from Los Angeles, via
Dubai, to Johannesburg, they offered twelve different tongues. It was Pentecost
at thirty-five thousand feet, fortunately without any tongues of literal fire.
On this trip I experienced two embarrassing moments, one private and not too bad, while the other was very public and very humiliating. I will never, as long as I live, disclose my MOST embarrassing moment, but am happy to share some lesser cringeworthy experiences with you, my faithful few blog friends. I do not have to search the archives of my pre-Christian memory, thank God. That would be too awful to contemplate. Since becoming a Christian I have endured a positive compendium of classic faux pas that have beset me. I have often thought of how easily we learn to speak Christianese, without realizing how incomprehensible we sound to non-Christians, or even Christians of the non-Charismatic variety. In my early days of bible college in Dallas, Texas, I found some of the conversations and comments totally over my head. It was not only the broad Texan accents that floored me, but the comments that I completely misinterpreted.
As a very baby Christian at bible college I was invited to give my testimony at a church which later became my home church. To this day I salute the courage of the pastor who let me loose in his pulpit and then asked me to pray for the dozens of people who flocked forward for prayer. (Let me digress to say that I was often asked to "give your testimony", and for a really long time had no idea what that meant. I understood that they wanted me to explain how I became a Christian but have subsequently wondered what on earth I said. I imagine I gave a few teachings on the various religions I had embraced before turning to Christ, along with some unsavoury anecdotes, but hey! It was probably entertaining.) On this occasion an older gentleman leaned forward and whispered something in my ear about Egypt. I asked him to repeat it because I hadn't heard/understood, so he hoarsely whispered, in a broad Texan accent, something about something that had happened to him in Egypt. With hindsight, and being a lot more fluent in Christianese than I was in 1979, I know that he was trying to explain that something from his pre-Christian life was plaguing him. At that time I took the whisper to mean that he was ashamed of what he was telling me, and the fact that it had happened to him on a trip to Egypt meant that he must have picked up an unmentionable disease, so I prayed for this dear brother to be healed of this dreadful condition picked up on his travels. Rarely has anyone I prayed for recovered and removed themselves from my vicinity with such speed and alacrity!
Prophecy is a minefield when it comes to this type of thing. A number of years ago I felt that God had given me "a word" for a woman in the congregation named Dawn. It was such a strong impression that I looked for her in services for a week or two. At a service around this time a call was made for people to come forward and pray at the altar. (This ACTUALLY meant to come and kneel down or stand along the front of the stage, which at that time was accessed by a series of steps along the front of the stage.) I sat on the stairs and looking along the scores of people kneeling, standing, or lying prostrate on the floor, I thought I spied Dawn. I called Christie, pointed to the kneeling figure whose face was totally obscured, and asked her if that person was Dawn. My dreadful child confirmed it, so off I went, confidently picking my way through bodies, and knelt behind the woman, hand on her bowed head, and began to prophesy. This means I began to share "the word" I had felt impressed by God to tell her. As I spoke I felt more and more uncomfortable but ploughed on, oblivious to the Holy Spirit's efforts to stop me. I had begun my "word", and my goodness, I had every intention of finishing. Until, that is, the head came up, the face turned towards me, and a totally different person said, "I think you may be confusing me with someone. My name is Ilana, not Dawn!" (She went on to marry one of our pastors, Grant, so I didn't irretrievably damage her, though as you will read, I am surprised she didn't make as hasty an exit as the man with the Egyptian experience!! ) Instead of graciously admitting that I had indeed made a mistake, I tried to save face. Only God knows what on earth I thought I was doing, but I tried to carry it off by lying. "Oh no," I said glibly, "I feel it is a new day dawning for you and so I am prophetically declaring it over you!" Yes, I really did say that, as Ilana can testify! The only redeeming part of this story is that my pathetic lie lasted only a minute or two before I went over to Jane and said to her, "You will NEVER believe what I just did!" I also had to track Ilana down and confess to her that I had just lied to her in the name of the Lord!
On this trip my minor moment was walking slap into a mirrored door in the middle of the night and nearly knocking myself out. There were no witnesses but it was no less embarrassing to realise that in my half asleep state I had caught a glimpse of myself with an open door in the reflection and had chosen to walk into the mirror.
The far worse moment occurred at the pastors's conference I attended on the campus of The King's Seminary. Jack Hayford, the highly respected and deeply revered elder statesman of the Pentecostal denominations was hosting a small gathering of pastors from all over the world. There were around thirty five of us, among whom were only two women so we were fairly conspicuous among our brethren. Each day we were seated at different tables of three, positioned in different parts of the room. Part of the dynamic of these seminars is to meet colleagues from different places, so interaction is encouraged. On the first morning we were asked to greet the people around us. As I was in the front row and had already met my immediate neighbours, I turned to the table behind me where three men were seated. The one seated in the middle addressed me in a very friendly way. "Fiona, my wife always wants me to tell her things like this, so I am not being personal. I just want to help you. You have lipstick on your teeth." I was genuinely grateful and touched that a total stranger would risk a rebuff by telling me this. I duly thanked him, rubbed my tissue over my teeth, and checked that the offending marks were gone.
The next morning I was seated in the back row and when the greeting time came round I was delighted to see my benefactor of the previous morning seated in front of me. I advanced on him, pleased that I could make a connection immediately, and bared my teeth at him. I mean BARED MY TEETH. I didn't smile. I didn't grimace. I gave a full faced imitation of a monkey in attack mode. "Does THAT look better?" I demanded. I stood in that posture for a good ten seconds or more, wrinkling my nose in my effort to expose more of my teeth, widening my grimace as I did so. It was only as the man recoiled visibly that my inner radar, the same radar that had tried to warn me that Dawn was in fact Ilana, kicked in. To my inexpressible horror I caught a glimpse of the man I THOUGHT I was addressing at the opposite end of the room. I closed my mouth with a snap, said good morning and God bless you and enjoy your day, then sat down with an inclination to bang my head repeatedly on the desk. Unable to leave well alone I waited till the next break, then went to the man I had accosted, who was studiously trying to avoid me, and made an effort to explain my actions. "I'm so sorry that I, er, showed you my teeth this morning. (WHY did I have to say it like that?) One of the men at the table behind me yesterday told me I had lipstick on my teeth and I thought it was you." He looked at me for a long, uncomfortable moment before replying. "Yes, I understand. And we all look alike, don't we?" This time it was I who beat a hasty retreat.
How wonderful it is to know that that we can NEVER embarrass God. He knows our intentions and our motivations. He knows what we MEAN to say, even if we say it clumsily or colloquially. Just as a parent is tolerant of a child's efforts to navigate new words, God is totally at ease with our attempts to negotiate our way through the Christian life. Christie used to get very upset with herself when she tried to do something and didn't succeed. As her mother, my biggest concern was that she would be so embarrassed at her own failures that she would stop trying. She never embarrassed me. I was happy that she had tried at all. When she persevered it made me proud. When she gave up I was frustrated. You are not perfect. Nor am I. So if you see me heading for you, intent on baring my teeth at you, I have no sinister motives in mind. I just want you to see my nice, lipstick free teeth. Or I may want you to check them for me. And as for you, don't be embarrassed by your own lapses or errors of judgment. Just get up and get on with it.
Till May 31st,
God bless.
Fiona
On this trip I experienced two embarrassing moments, one private and not too bad, while the other was very public and very humiliating. I will never, as long as I live, disclose my MOST embarrassing moment, but am happy to share some lesser cringeworthy experiences with you, my faithful few blog friends. I do not have to search the archives of my pre-Christian memory, thank God. That would be too awful to contemplate. Since becoming a Christian I have endured a positive compendium of classic faux pas that have beset me. I have often thought of how easily we learn to speak Christianese, without realizing how incomprehensible we sound to non-Christians, or even Christians of the non-Charismatic variety. In my early days of bible college in Dallas, Texas, I found some of the conversations and comments totally over my head. It was not only the broad Texan accents that floored me, but the comments that I completely misinterpreted.
As a very baby Christian at bible college I was invited to give my testimony at a church which later became my home church. To this day I salute the courage of the pastor who let me loose in his pulpit and then asked me to pray for the dozens of people who flocked forward for prayer. (Let me digress to say that I was often asked to "give your testimony", and for a really long time had no idea what that meant. I understood that they wanted me to explain how I became a Christian but have subsequently wondered what on earth I said. I imagine I gave a few teachings on the various religions I had embraced before turning to Christ, along with some unsavoury anecdotes, but hey! It was probably entertaining.) On this occasion an older gentleman leaned forward and whispered something in my ear about Egypt. I asked him to repeat it because I hadn't heard/understood, so he hoarsely whispered, in a broad Texan accent, something about something that had happened to him in Egypt. With hindsight, and being a lot more fluent in Christianese than I was in 1979, I know that he was trying to explain that something from his pre-Christian life was plaguing him. At that time I took the whisper to mean that he was ashamed of what he was telling me, and the fact that it had happened to him on a trip to Egypt meant that he must have picked up an unmentionable disease, so I prayed for this dear brother to be healed of this dreadful condition picked up on his travels. Rarely has anyone I prayed for recovered and removed themselves from my vicinity with such speed and alacrity!
Prophecy is a minefield when it comes to this type of thing. A number of years ago I felt that God had given me "a word" for a woman in the congregation named Dawn. It was such a strong impression that I looked for her in services for a week or two. At a service around this time a call was made for people to come forward and pray at the altar. (This ACTUALLY meant to come and kneel down or stand along the front of the stage, which at that time was accessed by a series of steps along the front of the stage.) I sat on the stairs and looking along the scores of people kneeling, standing, or lying prostrate on the floor, I thought I spied Dawn. I called Christie, pointed to the kneeling figure whose face was totally obscured, and asked her if that person was Dawn. My dreadful child confirmed it, so off I went, confidently picking my way through bodies, and knelt behind the woman, hand on her bowed head, and began to prophesy. This means I began to share "the word" I had felt impressed by God to tell her. As I spoke I felt more and more uncomfortable but ploughed on, oblivious to the Holy Spirit's efforts to stop me. I had begun my "word", and my goodness, I had every intention of finishing. Until, that is, the head came up, the face turned towards me, and a totally different person said, "I think you may be confusing me with someone. My name is Ilana, not Dawn!" (She went on to marry one of our pastors, Grant, so I didn't irretrievably damage her, though as you will read, I am surprised she didn't make as hasty an exit as the man with the Egyptian experience!! ) Instead of graciously admitting that I had indeed made a mistake, I tried to save face. Only God knows what on earth I thought I was doing, but I tried to carry it off by lying. "Oh no," I said glibly, "I feel it is a new day dawning for you and so I am prophetically declaring it over you!" Yes, I really did say that, as Ilana can testify! The only redeeming part of this story is that my pathetic lie lasted only a minute or two before I went over to Jane and said to her, "You will NEVER believe what I just did!" I also had to track Ilana down and confess to her that I had just lied to her in the name of the Lord!
On this trip my minor moment was walking slap into a mirrored door in the middle of the night and nearly knocking myself out. There were no witnesses but it was no less embarrassing to realise that in my half asleep state I had caught a glimpse of myself with an open door in the reflection and had chosen to walk into the mirror.
The far worse moment occurred at the pastors's conference I attended on the campus of The King's Seminary. Jack Hayford, the highly respected and deeply revered elder statesman of the Pentecostal denominations was hosting a small gathering of pastors from all over the world. There were around thirty five of us, among whom were only two women so we were fairly conspicuous among our brethren. Each day we were seated at different tables of three, positioned in different parts of the room. Part of the dynamic of these seminars is to meet colleagues from different places, so interaction is encouraged. On the first morning we were asked to greet the people around us. As I was in the front row and had already met my immediate neighbours, I turned to the table behind me where three men were seated. The one seated in the middle addressed me in a very friendly way. "Fiona, my wife always wants me to tell her things like this, so I am not being personal. I just want to help you. You have lipstick on your teeth." I was genuinely grateful and touched that a total stranger would risk a rebuff by telling me this. I duly thanked him, rubbed my tissue over my teeth, and checked that the offending marks were gone.
The next morning I was seated in the back row and when the greeting time came round I was delighted to see my benefactor of the previous morning seated in front of me. I advanced on him, pleased that I could make a connection immediately, and bared my teeth at him. I mean BARED MY TEETH. I didn't smile. I didn't grimace. I gave a full faced imitation of a monkey in attack mode. "Does THAT look better?" I demanded. I stood in that posture for a good ten seconds or more, wrinkling my nose in my effort to expose more of my teeth, widening my grimace as I did so. It was only as the man recoiled visibly that my inner radar, the same radar that had tried to warn me that Dawn was in fact Ilana, kicked in. To my inexpressible horror I caught a glimpse of the man I THOUGHT I was addressing at the opposite end of the room. I closed my mouth with a snap, said good morning and God bless you and enjoy your day, then sat down with an inclination to bang my head repeatedly on the desk. Unable to leave well alone I waited till the next break, then went to the man I had accosted, who was studiously trying to avoid me, and made an effort to explain my actions. "I'm so sorry that I, er, showed you my teeth this morning. (WHY did I have to say it like that?) One of the men at the table behind me yesterday told me I had lipstick on my teeth and I thought it was you." He looked at me for a long, uncomfortable moment before replying. "Yes, I understand. And we all look alike, don't we?" This time it was I who beat a hasty retreat.
How wonderful it is to know that that we can NEVER embarrass God. He knows our intentions and our motivations. He knows what we MEAN to say, even if we say it clumsily or colloquially. Just as a parent is tolerant of a child's efforts to navigate new words, God is totally at ease with our attempts to negotiate our way through the Christian life. Christie used to get very upset with herself when she tried to do something and didn't succeed. As her mother, my biggest concern was that she would be so embarrassed at her own failures that she would stop trying. She never embarrassed me. I was happy that she had tried at all. When she persevered it made me proud. When she gave up I was frustrated. You are not perfect. Nor am I. So if you see me heading for you, intent on baring my teeth at you, I have no sinister motives in mind. I just want you to see my nice, lipstick free teeth. Or I may want you to check them for me. And as for you, don't be embarrassed by your own lapses or errors of judgment. Just get up and get on with it.
Till May 31st,
God bless.
Fiona
Thankyou Fiona, I laughed so much it hurt.Blessings Adele.
ReplyDeleteWhahahahaha!!
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine God crying with laughter up there! I did! (not aligning myself with God ... this could go pear-shaped in a hurry).