A reluctant child – a lesson about God’s love

March 30, 2019

Maria Complaining, God's love, Proverbs 11, suffering , , , , 6 Comments

I was that reluctant child who complained about where God planted me.  Six years ago when we moved to western NC, God opened ONE door to teach French, all the way in Asheville, a 50-minute each-way commute. Within 6 weeks, I didn’t want to be there.  School was difficult.   An experienced French teacher (and filled with pride, I found out), I had come from a supportive Christian classical school. My principal liked me.  Parents were pleased with me.  I enjoyed good rapport with my students.

But at this new school disgruntled parents complained to my principal about their unhappy children.  I was stunned.  Parents didn’t talk to me, but went right to my principal.  By January, I was on an ‘informal’ probation.  This brutal first year humbled me. I even went so far as to contemplating cleaning houses as an alternative source of income.

But God!  Amazingly He got me through year 1 with a contract for another term.  I didn’t want to go back.  Despite job hunting that summer, He kept all other doors shut. I had no choice but to go back for year 2.  And year 3.  And year 4.

Something happened by the end of year 4.  By then I had enjoyed many hours getting to know my middle-school colleagues. I also grew professionally in how I coached kids to acquire French.  The school invested in me by funding further world-language training up in Boston where I was exposed to new ideas about teaching French with comprehensible input.  I was grateful.

In essence, though I did not want to be at this school for a number of reasons, I grew personally and professionally, in the midst of suffering and difficulties.  Working where God so clearly intended me to be remained hard, every day.

One shift in thinking did help somewhat. I’ve always wanted to use my French skills to teach others about the greatness of God. When I realized that I would not think it strange to encounter hardship on the mission field, I tried to stop whining to God.  Thinking about this teaching assignment as ministry helped.  Suddenly I could see that while teaching French was my official duty, being present to my colleagues, their parents and students was my primary calling.

It’s easy for me to get to know people. God has given me a real interest in people’s stories and problems.  I found that by inquiring and listening well, I could encourage both secular colleagues and those with a knowledge of God.  I offered to pray for both groups.  Gradually some opened up to me, sensing that they were safe in unburdening themselves. My heart was drawn even more towards them.  Each day I prayed for openings to say something true, beautiful and good about God.

Fast forward to a painful 2018 for Mike.  Vocationally and spiritually he had been struggling for 4 years after a honeymoon first year.  Setbacks and closed doors humbled him.  Spiraling into depression he found a biblical counselor.  By the end of November, only 4 months ago, God suddenly revealed the ‘unthinkable’:  Mike needed to look for  full-time work and we should put the house on the market. 

Now at the end of March 2019, God has sold our house, moved us to Huntsville, Alabama and Mike starts work on Monday, 1 April 2019.  And I no longer teach at my school. The other ‘unthinkable’ was that I did not finish out the school year.  I left teaching French with 8 weeks remaining in the school year.

Now for the good part!  Here is how God poured out love on this reluctant, often whiny child:

  • As soon as my principal informed parents that Madame Cochrane would be leaving to accompany her husband on a new adventure, parents wrote me and students swarmed me.  I heard how much everyone loved me and how sad they were that I was departing.  Students shared how much French they had acquired and what a loving, caring advisor I had been.
  • My sixth-grade team of teachers fêted me with Keto-snacks and tickets to the botanical gardens in Huntsville.  I heard from some teachers how much they appreciated my personal interest in their lives. ‘Who is going to ask me about my family?’ lamented the art teacher.
  • My last day some of my students gave me gifts, sang a song in French, hugged me A LOT, made a good-bye poster in French, hugged me more.
  • That same last day, colleagues shared lunch with me and gave me personalized book suggestions, a cross-stitch of my favorite Bible verse and a gift card for books!
  • Three hours later at a faculty meeting I did not attend, since it was my last day, the head of the school announced that 7 full-time teachers and 4 full-time staff were having their contracts for next year revoked, due to lower enrollment.

God’s timing floored me as much as the early-complaining parents caught me by surprise.  He providentially arranged for me to leave this school on a high note with a love-filled sendoff before my colleagues knew about the falling ax of some job losses.

Since my final school day ten days ago, here’s what I have concluded:

Proverbs 11:25 Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.

None of us embraces suffering willingly – it’s too painful. We like comfort and ease. However, in God’s hands, suffering brings rich blessings to the child of God.

Mike and I prayed over and planned the move to western North Carolina.  God clearly opened the doors for that transition, leading us to an amazing house on 10 acres in the Smokies and a well-paying French job for me. We reveled in the beauty.  Easy access to hiking was the main reason we chose this spot.  I also grew very close to Christian sisters, both in the community and at our church – a major gift from a loving Father.

Yet I suffered. And God worked through me in ways I had not anticipated.  As John Piper says:  Don’t waste your suffering!  By God’s grace I didn’t.  Nor did Mike.

Although this post is mostly about me, I will say that Mike was equally flabbergasted at the outpouring of feelings and gratitude and love from our church family AND from the beneficiaries of reporting he had done for World News Group. An equally reluctant worker, he would occasionally lament: “I never wanted to be a journalist!”. Yet God blessed that sometimes complaining tech reporter and church member.

Bottom line conclusion.  Our Father DOES know what is best, for us and for others. Sometimes where God has us is NOT about us, but for the blessing of others.

The gift of a small church family

March 17, 2019

Maria Discipleship, God's Purpose, Hebrews 10, Sanctification , 4 Comments

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV)

Dear Hazelwood Church,

Almost 6 years ago (16 June 2013) Mike and I walked into Hazelwood PCA in Waynesville, North Carolina and sat down for Sunday School.  You all greeted us with warm smiles and interest.  Starting that Sunday morning, God thrust us into your midst and you drew us into your lives.

Now as we head on to the next God-adventure, we are filled with gratitude toward God and to you, this tiny but vibrant outpost of saints in the beautiful Smoky Mountains.

Looking back, I clearly see how a small church family is uniquely structured both to love and to sanctify its members, provided each allows himself to be stitched into the fabric of the family. Hovering on the periphery is NOT conducive to receiving the Father’s purifying love.

Here are several ways you loved ME well, working symbiotically with the Father to sanctify me.  (Mike, too, received your love, trust, and support in many ways!)

  • You trusted me by welcoming my experiences and passions. I like to teach, to read and to pray.  Patrick, our pastor, allowed me to offer two workshops (one on contentment and one on prayer) to the women of the church.  My monthly submissions from different on-line ministries were always included in the monthly church newsletters.  You, the body, supported initiatives to publicize weekly prayers for church-funded missionaries, for Muslims during Ramadan and for God to open the hearts of the French during several spring campaigns.
  • You challenged me to move a bit more OUT of my selfish inclinations (I’m an Enneagram 5!). Sometimes I felt ‘guilted’ to attend a function, like the monthly potlucks. In keeping with transparency, I don’t like to go out at night once I’m home from work.  I went to my first women’s circle one night about 15-16 months after our arrival.  It went on TOO long, in my opinion.J The next meeting was the annual December supper meeting.  Thanks to God’s sense of humor, I found myself volunteering to take on the ministry of facilitating those monthly evening circle meetings.
  • You then allowed me to move the focus of our small group of gals to a book study and prayer time. Yes, some of you ‘grumbled’ a bit about having to READ something else, but all in love.
  • You corrected, challenged, and (when you felt led by God) rebuked me for my good. You also cried with me and prayed with and for me.
  • You allowed me to get to know the ‘real you’ by sharing your pain and your needs. Inviting me to pray for you gave me a sense of participating in your lives. Then when God DID come through by answering our prayers, my faith thickened and deepened.  I saw MORE of God and how good He is.
  • Just as these past 6 years of teaching in a school with colleagues of diverse beliefs broadened me and grew my compassion, so did living in your midst. Getting to know ‘small town’ folk with roots and older believers grew my appreciation and understanding of God’s love of variety. God exposed me to courageous men and women who suffer ill health and aging issues with dignity, faith in God and cheery smiles.
  • Finally, but not less significant, those of you whom I found a bit annoying at times were intentional GOOD gifts from God for my sanctification. I’ve known for a while that just as in the friction of marriage, the differences between friends, close neighbors and colleagues (ministry or job) are meant for our growth toward being like Jesus.  They are part of our Father’s individualized, curated, and planned course in His ‘School of Sanctification’.  Here’s a humbling supposition:  maybe ‘Aggravating Andy’ will remain a nuisance until I, Maria, have learned from my unholy reactions and thoughts how displeasing I have acted and how sinful/displeasing my responses have been.  If the Father’s will for my life is growth in holiness to be like His Son, then He will repeat the necessary lesson until I pass that section.  And it might be at the expense of ‘Aggravating Andy’. (disclaimer – I have no one in mind when I use that sobriquet!)

So, dear church family, thank you for embracing me and drawing me into the local body.  Thank you for earnestly wanting to know me, even the annoying parts!  Thank you for your love.

Mike and I have never before been prayed for and ‘commissioned’, sent off to be ‘missionaries’ to any people group.  But that is what you did this morning by means of Patrick’s prayer and the reception you gave us after the service.  You are sending us out from little but power-filled Hazelwood PCA, nestled right up against the Smoky Mountains in Waynesville, North Carolina to go and serve the people of northern Alabama in Huntsville.  God has equipped us well in these past six years to take the Good News of His Grace and make it known far and wide, yet up close and personal with our presence.  We will pray to discern His leading in selecting a new church family.  We don’t want to disappoint you or our good God.  So, continue to pray primarily for our ‘obedience in faith’, by grace.  We will pray for you as well.

With much love and affection,

Maria & Mike Cochrane

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

1 John 3:2

Lessons from the Shadowy Valley

March 10, 2019

Maria Discipleship, Ephesians 1, Glorifying God, Praise, Prayer, Promises, Psalm 107, Trials , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Some wandered in desert wastelands,
    finding no way to a city where they could settle.
They were hungry and thirsty,
    and their lives ebbed away.
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way
    to a city where they could settle.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
    and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
for he satisfies the thirsty
    and fills the hungry with good things.  Psalm 107:4-9 (NIV)

Mike and I are beginning to come out of a LONG trek through the wilderness, a journey without much light or clear vision. For the past 4-5 years, Mike has felt stymied in finding enough satisfying, suitable and value-adding work.  His original business plan when we moved to western North Carolina in the summer of 2013 aborted.  Another enterprise got off to a good start and then stalled one year later.  The door that God DID keep open these years of desert wandering has been as the tech reporter for World News Group.  But the work, as God-glorifying and useful as it was, left him with unexercised analytical skills and isolated from incarnational, face-face-face community. He grew depressed and increasingly beset by some irrational fears.

But thanks be to God, who provided a good biblical counselor and subsequent understanding and clarity to both of us.  The result? We are leaving western North Carolina shortly, something neither of us envisioned when we moved to these beautiful mountains.  But our good Shepherd, our constant guide and driver along the meandering ‘straight’ path He calls ‘good’ (see underlined verse above), has brought us within sight of a new city where we can settle.  The next God adventure awaits.

What have we learned in this God-appointed long trial and trek in the Valley?

  1. God gets our attention in adversity.  Neediness forced us to plow beneath the surface of His Word, unearthing treasure.  We grew hungrier for our daily reading through the Bible, year after year. We each started writing down in a notebook what we noticed in our readings and then sharing them at ‘Happy Hour’, while I was fixing dinner.  Discussing each other’s observations, unanswered questions and insights drove Scripture further into our hearts.  We now know experientially that man does not live by temporary food and comfort-providing stuff, (those good gifts God provides that come with the potential to become what we most value), but by God’s living Word.
  2. We each individually battled daily temptations to WORRY and FEAR.  We still do, but we have grown quicker to repent and remind ourselves of the Truth about who God is and what He says in the Bible.
  3. We practiced enunciating specific, measurable God-requests.  So many people prayed for us on and off these past 5+ years.  When you ask others to lift up your needs before God, you have to articulate well just what you do need.  Why? So you can recognize God’s provision when it comes and so you and the ‘pray-ers’ can properly THANK God for hearing and acting.
  4. Since early December 2018, we began keeping a prayer notebook.  We set it up like this: one page per day with a vertical line to make two columns:  Mike’s needs and Maria’s needs.  We each articulate and explain what is on our heart and our mind, for instance, a dreaded task to do, a burden or a fear.  I write each of them down in measurable detail.  Then we take turns praying out loud for one another.  My favorite part of this process is to look back to yesterday’s needs and see which ones God has already answered!  Then we praise our good God.
  5. A final lesson that we want to retain is this:  wilderness paths along which the Spirit leads us are prescribed by God as His good plan to conform us to His Son.  The trials are part of God’s curriculum designed to make us like more holy.  For what purpose?  to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One. Eph 1:6 Berean Study Bible.  Why do we want to hold fast to and not forget this fact about struggles, this truth, this component of God’s School of Discipleship?  So the next God lessons don’t catch us by surprise or alarm us.
  6. We also want to continue this habit of daily praying together.  Not only do we see tangible documented evidence of God at work, but that sacred space with Him has provided a safe place for Mike and me to invite the other into some of the dark corners of our hearts. Our marriage benefits from that practice.

Providentially as I meditated on how to record my thoughts for you, this timely meditation by 19th-century the famous English pastor cycled through again:

Charles Spurgeon’s morning devotion for 8 March

“We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”
Acts 14:22

God’s people have their trials. It was never designed by God, when he chose his people, that they should be an untried people. They were chosen in the furnace of affliction; they were never chosen to worldly peace and earthly joy. Freedom from sickness and the pains of mortality was never promised them; but when their Lord drew up the charter of privileges, he included chastisements amongst the things to which they should inevitably be heirs. Trials are a part of our lot; they were predestinated for us in Christ’s last legacy. So surely as the stars are fashioned by his hands and their orbits fixed by him, so surely are our trials allotted to us: he has ordained their season and their place, their intensity and the effect they shall have upon us. Good men must never expect to escape troubles; if they do, they will be disappointed, for none of their predecessors have been without them. Mark the patience of Job; remember Abraham, for he had his trials, and by his faith under them, he became the “Father of the faithful.” Note well the biographies of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and you shall discover none of those whom God made vessels of mercy, who were not made to pass through the fire of affliction. It is ordained of old that the cross of trouble should be engraved on every vessel of mercy, as the royal mark whereby the King’s vessels of honour are distinguished. But although tribulation is thus the path of God’s children, they have the comfort of knowing that their Master has traversed it before them; they have his presence and sympathy to cheer them, his grace to support them, and his example to teach them how to endure; and when they reach “the kingdom,” it will more than make amends for the “much tribulation” through which they passed to enter it.