A Recording My Friend Made For Me Twenty Years Ago Today

Dear Friend,

I was lying awake in bed at 4 o'clock this morning when I heard my phone buzz. It was a Facebook notification. My close friend Jennifer had just updated her status from Europe.

I am thankful for being able to communicate with my family easily. When we were in the Philippines, we mailed letters or made cassette tapes for the family. That was how Grandma and the others could hear what we sounded like. These were filled with one-sided conversations, songs, funny stories, or even awkward pauses when we ran out of things to say before we hit the stop button. I remember Mom and Dad trying to hurry to do anything to fill the tape since we did not want to waste the precious minutes on the tape. I always felt sorry for the people who actually listened to the WHOLE tape, front and back. I feel spoiled by how easy communication is now.

Jennifer is the daughter of missionaries who lived in the Philippines during her childhood. We met in middle school when her family was on furlough in the States. In high school they moved to Hungary, where she still lives today. Now she is a teacher in Budapest. She normally posts updates during her lunch break. I left a comment under her status.

Me:  I'm thankful to be the owner of a Jennifer tape from when you lived in Hungary in the early nineties. 

Me: Listening now.

Jennifer: Poor you. :-)

Me: It's wonderful. I keep tearing up over it! I just paused it about half way through side B. You said, "Good morning, Adriana. It's Sept. 12!" You were making this tape 20 yrs ago today!

Me: You just talked about your mom's birthday. And your [little sister] is brilliant. You describe her playing with her Hungarian friends in spite of the language barrier. Sulysap doesn't have phone service, but your dad has agreed to take you to a phone so you can call me. That would be my Christmas present. Your mom has made you some nice dresses by hand. There's a scene where you rescue Esther's shoe from the other side of a muddy lake. You're talking about what you and I will do next summer when I come to visit. I can visualize most of the places you're describing. You're going to miss your beautiful room with the "pure white walls" when you go to the Bible Institute. The curtains in the girls' room there are so drab . . . This is priceless.

Jennifer: Maybe I don't feel sorry for you. We'll see how you hold up at the end.

Me: I feel richly blessed this morning.

Jennifer: Funny, I completely forgot that I even made a tape for you.

Me: I knew it was in my letter box, but I haven't listened to it since you sent it to me. It's value has increased with time.

Jennifer in Toalmas at the Word of Life Bible College in 1994.

I visited Jennifer in the summer of 1995, a year after her recording was made. On the tape she talks about our plans for my visit.  We will work at a Bible camp, we'll travel throughout the countryside, and take day trips into the city. Her voice is the same --mellow and precise -- though of course she sounds younger. In part of the tape I can hear her alarm clock ticking as she recorded herself while still in bed one morning when she had a cold. There is a dog barking in the distance. A quiet day in a small village without telephones. 

I guess I'll go now. I love you very much. I think about you all the time. I can't wait until next summer. We're going to have so much fun. Even if you can only stay for a month, we'll still have a lot of fun. I know Budapest pretty well now. I don't get lost when I go there. I can even find places I've never been to before without too much of a problem. I think one of the best places you'll like is Buda. It's not polluted like Pest is. There's beautiful hills all over. That's also where the Castle District is. And you can walk for days in the Castle District just looking at stuff. So gorgeous.

Together at last in 1995.

So Jennifer, if you're reading this I want you to know that I listened to the WHOLE tape, front and back and there is no need to feel sorry for me. You apologized more than once on the tape because you were concerned I would find it boring. Well, it wasn't boring. Not one bit. It was a beautiful gift which I savored (and cried over) two times, twenty years apart. Thank you so much for your faithful friendship. I am richly blessed.

With Love,

Adriana

P.S. I can't wait to visit Hungary again!

Other posts in this series: Invisible Friendship, Air mail: Letters I Wrote at Age 17

Always Keep a Prayer on Your Lips

Dear Friend,

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.

~ from The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence

Years ago I overhead a conversation while in a dressing room in a department store. A grandmother and her young granddaughter were in the stall next to mine. 

Girl: "Grandma, I can say the Lord's Prayer! Do you want to hear it?"

Grandma: "Oh my! Why yes, I do!"

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us,

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

Grandma: "Oh my pretty little precious baby! MmmMmmMmm" 

Girl: "I learned that in Sunday School." 

Grandma: "Always keep a prayer on your lips, Child."

Though I never spoke with them or even saw their faces, their conversation about prayer has stuck with me. I've often told my own children "Always keep a prayer on your lips." It's some of the best advice I can give. When a prayer is on our lips it's nearly impossible to fall into mischief! 

When he had failed in his duty [Brother Lawrence] only confessed his fault, saying to God, I shall never do otherwise, if You leave me to myself; it is You who must hinder my falling, and mend what is amiss. After this, he gave himself no further uneasiness about it.

How do we pray continually?

In order to form a habit of conversing with God continually, and referring all we do to Him we must at first apply to Him with some diligence: but that after a little care we should find His love inwardly excite us to it without any difficulty.

We ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and plainly, and imploring His assistance in our affairs, just as they happen. 

Our only business [is] to love and delight ourselves in God.

We ought, once for all, heartily to put our whole trust in God, and make a total surrender of ourselves to Him, secure that He would not deceive us. 

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. Psalm 16:7-9

What advice, insights, or special memories can you share with me about prayer?

Peace & Joy,

Adriana

In Which We Give All to Get All : Guest Post by Anita Mathias

Dear Friend,
I'm honored to have award-winning author Anita Mathias as my guest today. Anita has been blogging through Genesis and Matthew on her blog since June. Here she shares her reflection on Genesis 35. You can find more of her insights at Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

+ + +

So Jacob has an amazing vision of a stairway between heaven and earth,
and angels ascending and descending on it. And at the top was the
Lord, who promises him the land, fruitfulness, blessing, protection,
his presence and his favour.

The context?

Jacob is fleeing the brother whom he had effectively disinherited and
deprived of the blessings of the first-born through deceit.

Hardly the best place to meet God and be promised his blessings,
wouldn’t you say?

But God is gracious and compassionate, full of mercy and abounding in love.

* * *

So after Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi disgrace and endanger him
through slaughtering every male in Shechem and then looting it, Jacob
is on the move again, back to the place of blessing.

God suggests that he returns to Bethel and settles there, building an altar.

In preparation, Jacob commands his household, “get rid of the foreign
gods you have with you, and purify yourself and change your
clothes(Gen 35:2).”

When they do so, and bury all the foreign Gods, and the rings they
wore as amulets or charms, God gives them safe conduct. “Then they set
out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that
no one pursued them.”

And at Bethel, God blesses him, and promises him fruitfulness and the
land, Eretz Israel.

Getting rid of foreign gods was a precursor of protection and blessing.

* * *

Why was this so important?

Because we can only be in one place. We are either in the waterfall of
God’s goodness and favour, or we are not.

We are either relying on God, or on our own strategies for success,
for wealth, or getting our own way, for example. (Nothing wrong with
strategies. Strategy is fun--and strategic action is obviously more
effective than random action. However, we have to continually ensure
that our strategies either originate with God, or have been run by
him, and have his approval.)

For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen
those whose hearts are fully committed to him (2 Chron. 16:9).
Somehow being wholly committed to God, wholly in the river of his
love, is necessary to being able to wholly access his ideas, and his
inspiration, and to experience his undeserved blessings. Selling
everything to buy that pearl.

All I have is yours, and all you have is mine, Jesus says. They are
correlated. Perhaps all we have needs to be His, for all He has to
become ours.

Our lunch must be handed over to Jesus for 5000 men to feed on it.

* * *

How do we reach this level of surrender?

Reaching total surrender to God and totally experiencing his
blessings, ideas and provision, like everything else in life, is a
matter of one step at a time, one step of obedience at a time.
Practice, blow it; get up, practice again.

I have not reached total surrender, alas, though I want to--because I
think living in Jesus is a more exciting place to live than following
my own whims and strategies.

Here are some areas I am working on: turning to Jesus rather than food
when in a low mood; not worrying about my work, but entrusting it to
him and asking for his ideas; doing my fair share of house-running
stuff.

But the real battleground for me is within. Forgiving and praying
blessing on those who injured me. Blessing those I feel envious of,
and asking God to bless me indeed, instead of lingering in envy. Not
dwelling in the negative, but turning my thoughts and words to the
positive. Praising and thanking God when I do not feel like doing so.

Tweak, tweak, tweak, until I am aligned with Jesus, and living in Jesus, with Jesus himself living in me.





Anita Mathias is the author of Wandering Between Two Worlds
(Benediction Classics, 2007) and blogs at Dreaming Beneath the Spires,
 anitamathias.com.

Anita lives in Oxford, England with her husband, Roy, and daughters,
Zoe and Irene. Visit her at Facebook at Dreaming Beneath the Spires or
on Twitter @anitamathias1.