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Permanent and Irreversible

July 23, 2010

Two nights ago I was having a relaxing evening hanging out with my favorite Michael. He was tidying up a paper he had to send off, and I was tidying up my account with WordPress. I had some old/unused accounts; names I had reserved but had changed my mind on and I decided to just get rid of them since they were making my dashboard crowded. So, I read up on what I needed to do and then I checked off the account I wanted to delete and hit “next”.

A very big, scary warning came up saying that to delete a blog is a PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE ACTION and did I really want to do something PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE. I have to admit, it gave me a chill! I went back and double checked: did I have the correct blog selected. Yes indeedy! So again, next step, big scary warning, and I said, “Yes.” Yes I want to go down that road and I am prepared for the consequences; bring it on!

The next thing that happens, when one is deleting a blog, just to help people like me who might suddenly have second thoughts even after saying, “Yes”: an email is sent where you are able to click a link which is now the final, final step. Here is where I think WordPress might reconsider it’s final, final step; I would like to suggest that there be a final, final, final step.

So I clicked the link and then merrily went back to see my neater global dashboard. Oddly, when I clicked on my “OneBrownLeaf” address a message appeared on a stark white screen that said, “The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available.” That must be a mistake, I thought, and refreshed the screen. That must also be a mistake, I thought, seeing the very same message. I closed Firefox and opened it once more; I typed in the address and there it was telling me I had deleted my blog.

I said (with some volume) “Oh no!!!!!” I may have said this repetitively, I can’t quite recall, what with the light-headedness and my hands pressed over my eyes.

I quickly found the WordPress support and emailed them something with the subject line, “Hellllllllp!!!!!!!!!” I could picture my blog just dangling there, not quiet gone, retrievable like a wedding ring on the edge of the drain and if I got the word out fast enough they would respond and say, “Because of your quick thinking, Mrs. Klassen, we were able to save OneBrownLeaf from imminent destruction! Congratulations!”

WordPress has not returned my S.O.S. thus far, and it has given me some time to reflect on this experience.

When my website disappeared, I just kind of blanked out; I think it was the words PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE. When some things go wrong in life, that is the way it seems. In varying degrees, a sense of panic creeps up my spine and spiders into my thoughts, wrapping my mind in a web of worry. I don’t consider myself a worrier, but that is when there is nothing to worry about. When something goes wrong, I can obsess over it. I can lose sleep over it. I can wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.

But what is PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE? 1 Corinthians 10:13 (in the Bible) says,

“No Temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

There are two words in this verse that might throw us off, the first temptation and the second be tempted can be a bit confusing; here’s another way of looking at it:

“For no temptation (no trial, adversity, affliction, trouble), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear]. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation He will [always] also provide the way out (the means of escape to a landing place), that you may be capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently.”

There are some pretty serious things that we wrestle with in life and I do not mean to make light of pain; but I must gently suggest (note to self) that even pain is a door we can walk through; we can find ourselves in a new place, when we are ready, if we choose to do so. 1 Corinthians 10 isn’t just for the garden variety trials, after all. Even our worst things can have an alternate ending.

With that disclaimer, I will return to my blog story. What was PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE there? My actions were; kind of, but not really. I did lose something: an address, connections with some strangers/followers, traffic; but I was able to piece most of it back together because I had a backup. Last week I made a backup file of my blog. I didn’t really know how to do this, but I kind of figured it out and had even made a back-up site. I am sure this was God saying, “I think I should give that girl a shove in the right direction, because next week she is going to do something really stupid. Let’s help her out.”

I had glanced at the backup I had made at the time, but hadn’t really checked it out thoroughly and I think this was at the root of my panic-moment. The fact that I had a back-up didn’t jump out in front of me and say, “No worries! Got you covered!” When the reality of my error hit, I just froze. I should have known my back-up better because then, when my site went down, my error would have annoyed me, but that’s about all.

So many of the things I face, the things I have angst about are just perceived dangers. Something happens and all I can see is white and I have a horrible feeling something just went terribly wrong. Maybe it actually did, but is that it?

1. First of all I can breathe, knowing that nothing is wasted. God has promised me that even the most troubling circumstances can all be turned around and used for actual good (Romans 8:28).
2. God always has a strategy. I read this once (Ortberg, I think), that if one pictures life as a chess board, God always has a play, no matter how the pieces are arranged on the board. So, even though there are real worries in life, as 1 Corinthians 10 reminds me, there is always another move.
3. I am never alone in any situation. Sometimes we just need to step out of the room and talk to Jesus who is ready, willing and able to help us (Isaiah 41:10)

How many times has God watch me sweat it out before I remember my back-up? If I am putting myself through the wringer, it is a clear sign that I either do not trust that my back-up is real or that my back-up is trust-worthy. If either of these theories are true, that means I have not taken the time to thoroughly look at Who my back-up is and how He operates. Put plainly, I don’t know Jesus; I am not familiar enough with His Words for them to make any difference.

So my little story has a happy ending, but not all my stories do. Sometimes what I have invested in is “gone” and sometimes the thing that mattered is “over” and sometimes it has felt as if the pain of something will “never go away”; but PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE? No. As in the case of my blog, we do not walk through life unscathed, but in Christ, nothing is completely lost. Our perception of things cries, “What good could ever come of this?” And our back-up, Jesus, shows us how mercy works and always has the final, final, final word.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze” (Isaiah 43:2)

—Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

Afterword: take some time to read Psalm 116

Afterword: my original site is back, up and running. For full details, read this post on my site.

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Understanding Our Journey

July 21, 2010

Days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years; awake at six and back down at ten or eleven (check the calendar before you go to sleep so you know what is facing you the next day). Much of what I do between the hours is forgotten; at the end of the week when someone asks me, “how was your week,” I often can’t remember how it was.

Proverbs (in the Bible) today, is urging me to do more than “live out” my days: “The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way” (Proverbs 14:8).

Do I, do you understand your way?


  • Do you ever stop doing, doing, doing. Just stop? I don’t mean the kind where you drop onto the couch and flick on the TV. I mean the kind where you choose to stop and think with purpose.

  • Do you pause between one thing and another? Or do you just blaze ahead, solve your dilemma, find a new job (*This from a Twitter today: “Heard this recently: “The average person under 40 will change jobs every 20 months for the rest of their lives.” Pete MacIntosh), latch onto a new relationship, move on, move out, move in, move over? A certain group of monks always observe the “moments between moments” and we would do well to do the same, to understand where we have just been and where we should be next (not just could be).

  • Do you ask yourself good questions? I don’t mean the heat-of-the-moment ones, I mean the smart, unhurried ones that actually help you understand you, your life, your world?

  • Do you ask yourself good questions? I don’t mean the heat-of-the-moment ones, I mean the smart, unhurried ones that actually help you understand you, your life, your world?

  • What’s going on in that inner world of yours these days?

There’s many-a-day where I just get through it and get it done; but something is amiss in all of that; something tugs at me and calls me.

This morning I was thinking about all of this while swimming laps at JBMAC. The first half is me working way too hard to get across the pool (do not imagine style and grace), but the second half I just put the fins on, get out a board and I swim, head down, staring at the blue tiles at the bottom of the lane; and I think. No one says a word to me in the sanctuary of the water; and so, back and forth and back and forth, thinking about this Proverb.

A whisper: a word comes to mind and I am more than a little excited to unlock it. That’s how I find God works in me; sometimes one word out of His Words. Sometimes a little thought and it sends me somewhere, on a journey. It doesn’t always happen this way, I don’t always feel like going on a journey. I miss words; I miss nudges. Sometimes I am just distracted; sometimes I really do not want to hear from God. But when my ears are open; things come to mind and I turn it over and over and hope that the seed finds fertile soil in my heart.

Even if we don’t travel anywhere in particular, we are travelers; pilgrims. We are designed to discover things – far away things or things in our own backyard; things that are distant from us, things that are in front of us. Mike did a great paper on this topic, based on a book he read called the “Art of Pilgrimage” (if you want to know more, go to http://www.mybookreviews.info). He quotes in his paper,

“We all have a longing to discover something and unfortunately we can travel and not actually discover, we can put on miles and not see anything. Mark Twain says that travel has a way to eliminate narrow-mindedness, but this requires of the traveler a kind of introspective; as she covers the ground outwardly, so she advances fresh interpretations of herself inwardly.”

And this is what Proverbs is calling us to: fresh interpretations. How fresh are mine? Am I living on interpretations handed off to me? Knocked into me? Borrowed from others? Am I interpreting life based on correct understanding or out of my illusions or disillusionment? Would my whole life change if I had a new interpretation of it?

The way you tell me to live, God, is always right; help me understand it so I can live to the fullest. (Psalm 119:144 MSG)

– Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

Afterword: The word that came to mind as I swam was the word “consider;” that might not seem like anything to you, but it is my white rabbit. If you want to know where it is taking me; here is what I did next. I made a list of “consider the” phrases found in the Bible and I am going to take a run at each one over the next weeks. Join me if you like; its a work in progress. If you want to follow along, visit http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com Read More

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