hope – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

May 30, 2024

Company Of Friends

Cradling the lifeless form of their newborn daughter, the couple could hardly contain their sorrow. Nothing fully prepares expectant parents for the trauma of losing the precious infant whose arrival had been joyously anticipated through the long months prior.

They were young in the Christian faith, and their shattered hearts needed all the mending “the God of all comfort” might bring.

Comfort them he did. Not in a magic display of immediate relief absent of future tears and void of sorrow surges that can erupt without a moment’s notice. Rather through the companioning presence of One who (though intimately acquainted with grief) embodies the singular kind of hope that “springs eternal”.

To the husband and wife and their young son, a handful of friends, American and international, remained available in respectful but easy reach. In the fortifying strength of intercessory prayer, the small band of the faith community supplied them with the embodied presence of the Lord of Life. Verbal expressions were rarely voiced. They were seldom needed. There are settings where Presence alone speaks volumes.

To the wonder of many – believers and non-believers alike who had filed into the sanctuary for the little one’s memorial service – the young father offered up tender expressions of gratitude to God the Father. Though weary with grief, our gentle=mannered friend, hailing from a land far away, had drunk from waters of grace issuing from the risen Christ.

From their shadowland valley, the family moved forward day by day, drawing often upon the Lord’s peace, his immutable Word, and a company of friends.

March 28, 2024March 27, 2024

A Pulsing Contagion

“Hi Jerry! I’m Weili!”

The cheery voice streamed from the phone. Her accent had the musical lilt of a young Far Easterner, which clearly pulsed with excited urgency.

“I have just recently come to Tulsa from California where I have been studying at a university.”

It’s always a refreshing sound, a cheery voice at the opposite end of a telephone line. Weili caught me a little off guard with her next words – strung together with enthusiasm – high speed.

“Jerry, I am a Christian. I met the Lord there in California. Now I’ve heard about the work you are doing here in Tulsa, and I have a request!” She continued with barely a pause,

“Please come to the Jesus Inn tomorrow night. Bring your guitar! Several new grad-student guys just arrived from my country, and you can sing some songs and tell them about Jesus!”

I smiled at the spunk of this girl I had never met, Somehow she knows of our presence on campus and that I plunk guitar strings now and then. Adding to the mix, I mused, Weili seems a young lady overflowing with boundless joy, and a heart just bursting with evangelistic fervor.

Her spirit (all that I really had to go on) sparked inside me both an element of intrigue and a sense of adventure. Her child-like eagerness felt contagious. Who could not like this person? I thought with a smile.

Finally she paused, making room for a response.

“Well, Okay Weili, If it’s alright with the Jesus Inn folks, I’ll see you there.”

The ‘Inn’ – a string of aged houses lining a stretch of city block near the campus – had gotten launched as an in-residence place offering help and hope to a young generation back in the 1960s. Gordon and Susan Wright, along with ‘recovered-and-in-recovery’ volunteers – together with the Wright’s own children – had long stewarded the unconventional space.

To a long parade of the homeless, the hippied and the bedraggled – from lost and afraid flower children to strung-out , disillusioned druggies – the Jesus Inn became a haven of refuge. A place of hope.

“Lord”, I whispered the next evening as I gathered Bible and guitar and headed out the door, “please meet us, please guide.”

September 14, 2023September 14, 2023

Fountain

“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.”

By the time Richard Foster penned these words in his important book, “Prayer – Finding the Heart’s True Home”, he had gleaned some insights through years of learning to walk with Christ.

Richard had come to recognize that Christian prayer, in its most basic form, is not an exercise to enter into as a religious performance.

Many good and sincere church-goers become burdened down over time under the load of dutiful praying. Conversing with God (the actual meaning of what it is to pray), if engaged as a religious duty becomes a load that crushes.

Yes, serious praying like intercession (deep-hearted appeals for God’s watch-care over other people’s concerns) can feature intense times of wrestling in the arena of spiritual conflict. Still, when the Jesus-follower prays – even with intensity – the praying carries a quality of hope and of trust. Sitting quiet before him – recalling good that he has brought to one’s life – voicing thanksgiving. Prayer entered into in such a heart posture allows the stirring of a fountain within. The love fountain.

The reason? Communing with God in Christ, regardless the form it takes, is marked by faith and hope, of confidence and assurance in Father-God’s loving care. Unlike a vending machine where what happens is all about transaction, the relationship between Jesus and his apprentice is centered in just that. . . Relationship.

Thanksgiving mingled in worship invariably leads to prayer rising heavenward in some fashion. In fact, where these two expressions are offered up in one’s life – thanksgiving and worship – prayer is happening.

Love works that way. It is not self-seeking but generous – even when the answer we may have hoped for does not get realized. Love leans in. Navigating life out of the love fountain ensures teeth-gritting finds no place to land.

August 17, 2022August 17, 2022

Changing. Inside-Out

Hi and welcome back friends (old and new alike)!

Excited to introduced our freshly-resumed blog, offering up discourse on a stimulating topic. Change, Inside-Out.

If you’ve visited my website in earlier times you know of my published memoirs, Living With A Limp and Giants In The Rough. See links at this website to view and order resources.

You’re invited to trek with me now as we together explore the what and why (and a bit of the how) of this theme. Life transformation.

Most of us would like to catch some hope of change for the better in our own lives or those dear ones we most care about. I welcome you to ‘draw up a chair’ and savor a few samples of this cuisine. Maybe you’ll choose to linger at the table an extra moment, pondering a new flavor. Regardless, make yourself at home!

Serving #1

“I guess I’ll go with Accounting.”

What was I thinking. . . A better question, Was I thinking?

This little book is about changing. The accounting story is the first in a small parade of narratives with reflections sprinkled along the way. The thread linking them all together points to one common theme. Change.

Changing a vocation, an education stream, or a new place to live, all these mark common redirections for many. But, probably the most radical kind of shift, and weightiest, in our lives comes when we purpose to change our very selves. And undertaking the change from the inside-out.

The year (1963) had already been for me a stretch of transition, high school graduation included.

Thumbing through pages of a vocational school catalog I spotted the Accounting Program. “Sure, why not?”, I thought. (My friend Dan – father of eight adult children – is known for pithy statements, “the foolishness of youth that only age cures.”)

My romance with spread sheets, ledgers and calculations died two days into the course.

When a travel route starts leading to pointless destinations, revisiting a trusted roadmap is wise.

But neither Rand McNally nor GPS offer any real help when trying to navigate the larger highways of life. What we are offered in the midst of our broodings over multiple scenarios is something far richer and better than we might dream. The offers come through an ancient book bursting with story and counsel. The ‘book of books’ (the Bible) points us in a direction like no other.

Who among us desires transformative change, changing leading one to wholeness and to goodness, the real kind of goodness? Bringing that question home to me personally I had to reflect a bit, Do I want such a thing? The bible, lying open before me, leads the way I have found to just such a life. A life increasingly marked by flourishing.

Accounting 101 was not the smartest choice. It was, however, a wakeup call. Best I make a course correction, a correction leading to change. A refreshing word. Change.

“Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. . . the courage to change the things I can. . .”*

October 30, 2017October 30, 2017

Small Steps

Kristi Yamaguchi – not your average Yankee name. But America’s Olympian gold medalist in figure skating nailed it for people of all cultures with her take on ‘small steps’.

I learned to put 100 percent into what I’m doing. I learned about setting goals for myself, knowing where I want to be and taking small steps toward those goals. I learned about adversity and how to get past it.

Kristi packs six insights into this mini-paragraph. Spot them?

I find thoughts like these serve as little appetizers. For myself. Of hope, of vision. They seem something like echoes – God-thoughts.

I’ll never cut dance rhythms across a skating rink – smiling now at an amusing image.

But giving 100 percent toward something of worth, setting some goals, knowing where I’d like to be or what I’d like to become, spotting adversity and getting beyond it. Something about such things feels inviting. It stirs something in me, doesn’t it you? God-thoughts within our grasp. Worthy dreams to realize – moving there, a small step at a time.

So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing 1 Corinthians 9:26

June 16, 2015August 28, 2017

Standing already. Why Not?

You did what? My body, settled in the wheelchair, jumped a little. The doctor’s tone was sharp. He was not pleased.

Who told you to stand up?

It was Monday in what would become my final month at Hillcrest Hospital.

I had been at our Okmulgee home for a rare weekend visit. Sunday afternoon I rested on a living room sofa while mom busied herself in the kitchen.

A thought from nowhere suddenly stirred me.

Try your legs. Stand up. For a few seconds I gazed at my limbs. They hadn’t supported my body for months. What if. . ?

Why not?

I wobbled upward, drawing support from the sofa arm. Once fully upright I leaned against the nearest wall. Steadying myself I called out, Mother. Mother! She released her dish towel and it landed on the floor. Some quick steps from the kitchen and she was with me. She steadied me a little. Then we stood together. Just standing without movement. Upright. My mom and I looked down and took in my spindly legs. Astonished.

Not accustomed to bearing weight, my legs quivered and Mother lowered me again to the sofa. It was then I smiled. Eager to tell the nurses – and the doctor. And Monday came.

Being a youngster, I had been scolded over a generous number of misdeeds before. But never rebuked for trying to walk. Scolded for using my limbs – by a person whose job it was to restore their use? The thought bewildered me.

I saw later that recovery usually requires process. To put weight on my limbs too soon and without proper oversight could hurt – even ruin – any hope for recovery. Inside though, I couldn’t quiet the rush of emotion. I would soon walk. Walk.

Running with Meaning

In the first blog post of this series, Running with Meaning, I spoke of my dad having a limp of sorts – disadvantages in life. Then the idea of California, notions of work there, a place for beginning a family; these possessed his thoughts. Some why not dreams stirred in Clyde Baxter.

Perhaps you are meeting with hardship, illness or work troubles. Relational pain; maybe a personal struggle.

I think it can serve us well to look about (in my instance a new look at a pair of nine-year-old inactive legs). And to look up. Hope comes from a place beyond ourselves. Up.

We revisit Opaline – the angel of a shared affliction – and her narrative soon. Faith marked her journey – differently in some ways than mine. Still with wonder. And surprise.

Why not?

April 21, 2015August 28, 2017

A Sure Hope

The mourners dispersed. The flower-dotted cemetery reverted to its earlier stillness. Thelma almost whispered her words.

What is it, Dovie? This Presence. It’s inside me. . in gentle waves. What is this goodness and this . .safety I feel?

Thelma’s question hung in the air. The shadow of a Canary Island Palm stretched across the lawn before them.

She was hungry for answers. This utter absence of her earlier grief astonished her. She hoped that the extraordinary calm would somehow remain. Yet she feared it may take flight. Could she carry on?

Dovie, will this peace, or the source of it, be near again if I (she corrected herself) when I need it?

More questions. She had many and voiced most of them to Dovie over coming weeks.

Dovie was not a person of complicated notions or grand explanations. She waited. As she sensed a thought forming that brought clarity she pondered it, then offered a response. Otherwise she remained still. Prayerful.

The God that Dovie came to know and to love was real. And he was the giver of the Book. She knew that answers for questions that actually mattered were linked to the precious book. The pages of her own Bible showed uncommon signs of wear. It attested to truth. And to God’s presence.

“All I know, Thelma, is Jesus is real. It’s him. He’s the presence.” Her words were simple, uncomplicated. Dovie responded in this way it seemed every time. Always highlighting Jesus.

How do I get him. . have him in my life, Dovie? Can I? I don’t want to be without the hope. I need Jesus.

“Just say that to him, dear. Give him your heart. Surrender to him your whole life. Let him begin to take over. He’s listening. He doesn’t turn anybody away.”

Thelma yielded. As much as she knew how to. Shortly afterward Clyde kneeled, giving himself over to God’s care. Both of them were ready. They sensed it keenly. They needed God’s presence.

They were comforted too, that he understood the pain of releasing a son to the grave. Neither understood a lot of their salvation. They didn’t worry themselves over it. They just believed, and trusted.

Clyde and Thelma entered a new kind of life. Striding forward in faith, limping at times. In love. And hope.

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