Holding His Hand in the Dark

I have been wending and wading my way through what has been, unquestionably, the most challenging period of my life to date. I have looked up to God, but I have also, many times, felt a distance between us of my own making.

Sometimes I am angry with Him for letting me go through such pain. My rational mind knows how stupid that is, and how sinful. I repent. I try to listen for His voice. Then I clench my fists in frustration and the cycle begins again. Here's the thing: I know in my heart of hearts that His plan for me and my loved ones is FOR OUR GOOD. We were not created for continual defeat.

Yesterday I prayed very specifically that I would tune out religious spirits that mockingly tell me that suffering and defeat are my lot in life. No, Jesus Christ's death on the cross was my path to worthiness in the presence of God. Yes, I will grow from suffering. No, God does not bring it. It is the by-product of being in a fallen world, and is also the work of my adversary, the devil. Yes, He allowed it. However, that does NOT mean He plans for me to live in defeat and discouragement. Help is on the way. God's plans, which are for good, will unfold. He hears and answers prayer. He works miracles. ("For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him." 2 Chron. 16:9, King James Version of The Holy Bible.)

Neither me nor my loved ones were created and placed on this earth to endure one bone-crushing defeat after the other. We were instead created to fulfill our specific destinies, to enjoy our callings, to be fruitful and to enjoy life in the loving care of our Heavenly Father. If that offends someone's religious sensibilities....I just DO NOT CARE.

Don't care. Sorry. I have lived under the banner of condemning voices from hell telling me either that I deserved what I am enduring, brought it on through my actions or inaction, or that there will be no end to it. Those are lying spirits.

Today I ask God for direction for the next 24 hours. I ask Him for the strength to do whatever He tells me to do. Sometimes that's as far out as He will let us see. Sometimes He asks us to hold His hand in the dark and let him lead one step at a time. Other times there will be just enough light to put one foot in front of the other, the path slow-going and painstaking. Always He expects us to look to Him for direction and trust Him for strength. It's when we adjust our sails in our own direction or trust our own resources that we will fail utterly. In Christ there is only victory.

A Darkness That Can Be Felt

When life brings terrific storms, challenges designed by our enemy, the devil, to turn our boat upside down in the swells, to swamp us with discouragement and drown us with horror, there is always a still, small voice in the wind.

This still, small voice, the sound of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of God and the anointing and strength (I think of Him as the grease in the wheels of our God-given destiny) of God, is accompanied by the sight of Jesus Christ coming to us on top of the water. As He comes, light surrounds him, engulfing the darkness of our trials.

I am in a particularly challenging season of life. The darkness of the trial I am facing is reminiscent of the plague of darkness in the Old Testament. God wanted to demonstrate his power among the Egyptians, who had enslaved his chosen people, the Israelites. He did so through a series of curses. One of these was to send a darkness among them so penetrating that the Bible says it  could be felt. The first few days of my current challenging season, I felt plunged into a darkness that could be felt. I am not referring to the velvety black of a peaceful summer evening sky, when the stars string an array of hope across the countenance of the heavens, breathing peaceful sleep into all creatures below. I am talking about a darkness that leaves you groping for an emotional handlebar. I am talking about the kind of darkness an amusement park might plunge parts of an indoor rollercoaster into, leaving the riders guessing about what comes next. Will there be a hairpin turn that leaves you uncertain as to which direction you are traveling? Maybe a massive plunge downward at what feels like a ninety-degree angle.

It doesn't ever take long before the Lord begins to redeem a season like the one that I am in. Right away I stop my rebellion, my spiritual laziness and I start to look for Him, to cry out to Him. If I were God, I would not listen. But He always does. Pretty quickly I sense that He is with me. With that assurance comes hope. It's not necessarily a hope that everything I am facing will be resolved quickly and perfectly, though the Bible does say that I will experience His goodness here on earth. It's more a hope that His blessed presence will go with me WHEREVER I LAY MY FOOT on this fallen planet.

Here is a wonderful promise for those of us who are scaling our own personal Mt. Everests: "The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them." (Psalm 145:18-19.)

Rest in His love today.



(Scripture reference is from the Holy Bible, New International Version, 1984, International Bible Society. Published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan.)

Nesting

Many, many times over the course of my life, I have rared back (not sure this is a real term, but it's one we use in the South) and pitched myself headlong into my faith, with the express intention of giving Christ my all. Of selling out to Him lock, stock and barrel. This is a significant step for someone like me, who was ADD before it was cool. I have what I affectionately refer to as "motivational phasing." In short, I go AWOL from certain areas of my life while going OCD bananas in others. I scrap-booked for two or three years in manic fashion, then trailed off to pursue other things. I will steadfastly clean house (for a few minutes) then fall back into domestic lethargy while reading an entire book in days.

It is not as if I have EVER walked away from my faith in Jesus. It's just that following Him requires a single-mindedness of devotion that I have never mastered. At the rate I am going, I am going to be carried across the finish line, bowing low in thanksgiving that Jesus died for my (MANY) habitual sins. I have and do pay the heavy price of broken fellowship with Jesus, a life filled with fears that make daily duties sometimes feel like a walk through a fun-house of mirrors, and a continual sense that I am A) missing the mark, B) unworthy of fellowship with the very people who would help me to grow and C) wandering around in the mist and fog of someone else's destiny, not my own. And at my current weight (35 lbs over what I'd like), I guess I could say it's like a scene from "Gorillas in the Mist."

After reading a beautiful book by one of my favorite Christian writers, I started to make some meaningful changes in my spiritual life a few weeks ago. I was sleeping at night for the first time in recent memory. Satan immediately attacked, leaving my little fortress in tatters. He brought irresistible distractions, in the form of struggles involving my children and conflicts with other family members. He has studied me for a very long time. He knows what flings me into the wind. I suppose, instead of concentrating on my weaknesses and failures, I should get back up. Just get back up, take the Lord's hand, and move on. After all, following the Lord is NOT about me. It's about Jesus. If my life reflects Christ, it is CERTAINLY not to my credit. His overwhelming grace and mercy and the power of His Holy Spirit bring about any and all good in me and in my actions. He is the center, and I need to make my nest in Him.

Crooked Seams, Dusty Dreams!

My day began at 3:30 a.m., when I awoke from a glorious, generous slumber of approximately four hours. Give or take. I was thrilled that I could not go back to sleep, especially given the fact that I have only around ninety-five million things to do today.

An hour-and-a-half  (and a cup of coffee) later, I see that someone has posted something in Spanish on my favorite author's page. I burst into tears (whether from nostalgia, longing or sleep deprivation I simply cannot say) at the fact that, after all of these intellectually indolent years as a housewife, I can still read Spanish fairly well. Sometimes I get a nudge that I am not operating in my areas of giftedness. We know that nurturing, while maybe not a gift, is a passion of mine (hence the being home even though my kids have twice my shoe size), but cleaning and organization are not. We know that cooking, while necessary, has never captured my complete fascination to the degree that perhaps it should. Let's move on to sewing.

I decided that, since my husband said that his grandmothers had quilts about the house and the sight of them raised nostalgia, I would go "all-in" and learn how to do it! Hooray! I am going to challenge myself! I am going to make some amazing quilts. Gary will arise and call me "Blessed"!!!

Never mind that I had never flipped the on switch on a sewing machine. Never mind that I have notoriously rotten hand-eye coordination. Never mind any of that! Signed up for a beginner machine quilting class.

The very first three-hour class was a continuing series of disasters for me. We were given little pieces of fabric to practice sewing a straight seam on. At the slightest tap of my foot, my machine seemed to take off like a runaway train, sucking my little slips of fabric in at a bizarre angle. I felt as if my dignity had been yanked under the needle as well, only to emerge on the other side with the pitiful riverbed-crooked seams, as tattered and pockmarked as a bullet-ridden outlaw in the old West. I never got the practice seams done right. Had to move right on to my actual quilt strips. Fun, fun for everyone. At one point my fabric bunched up along the seam. Someone fixed my tension by removing my bobbin (which looked like an obscure part belonging to a one-hundred-year-old Buick) and tinkering with it. Another time there was a tangle of threads and I had no way to accurately report what I had done to cause said tangle. It was as mysterious as the ways of a goat family on a lonely Himalayan mountaintop.

After what felt like seven thousand tries, I had about half of the day's work done. "What you don't get done in class will be homework," announced the instructor. I immediately felt gongs of doom going off in my heart. It was as if someone had said "At this times next week you will be publicly executed." If I could not do the work in class without constant supervision, how on earth would I ever get it done at home?

I cried tears of humiliation, frustration and disappointment on the way to the middle school to pick up my child. I am not giving up learning to machine quilt. I like the idea of challenging myself, of strengthening a part of my brain that is apparently as unused as a frat house library. I am, however, going to try to find some balance.

I know that language is my greatest strength. I am praying for opportunities to strengthen those muscles, as they will allow me to run faster and leap higher with regards to God's plan for the rest of my life than the underlying craft muscles. It will be fun, exhilarating even, to produce a quilt from such a mammoth effort. It will be gratifying and affirming to write things that people read, or to teach others to do so, and to understand that my efforts will be rewarded with a God-inspired destiny. I don't want to be guilty of pursuing my own way and in so doing leaving my obvious gifts on a shelf to collect the dust of regret.

POST SCRIPT:  I dropped out of quilting class. Seems the mammoth effort equaled more misery than exhilaration. I get cold chills every time I drive past the quilting shop.

Seeking

This has shaped up to be the "SUMMER OF NO BLOGGING"!! However, my favorite post since beginning this online journal was inspired in June. That's when Nik Wallenda's high wire walk over a portion of the Grand Canyon captured the fascination of millions and bowled me over with the spiritual/life-application parallels.

It was as if scales were dropped from my eyes and I saw life the way God intended for it to be lived....minute-by-minute in complete trust of His provision and constant connection to Him. I was suddenly jerked from my SEA of self-pity into a realization that I had stopped praying (and really believing) for so many things and had instead bought my enemy's lies and retreated into the muddy trenches of negativity (which breeds foul things of every shape and size).

The last couple of weeks I have looked at my life with even greater scrutiny. What negative influences have I allowed to shape my thinking? What am I filling my mind with? What am I exposing myself to? I am pruning my already rather miniscule television viewing habits even further, cutting down all of the crime whodunit shows I have poured into my spirit. I am avoiding people who don't really want help from me, but would rather just splash their unhappiness in my face and bring me as low as they enjoy wallowing. I am working to use better judgment in the friendships I forge and be less of an open book to all people and more of an open book to the Lord, asking Him to show me who to associate with, who needs me, who would benefit from what I have to offer. That's not exclusivity, that's wisdom, which the Bible (particularly in the book of Proverbs) has an awful lot to say about.

I am PITIFULLY far from perfection in my faith....but I have confidence that if I keep seeking, I will find the Father's heart. And it's a big one! 

Happy Trails

I turn forty-five next month. That feels like some kind of danger-signal-high-watermark birthday, all set to scream "Be gone, all ye time-wasters! The sand in her hourglass is moving at warp speed! And at least half of it is in the bottom of the glass!"

I wonder if the Lord has chuckled at me today. I have a journal going, and I am working through an "Overcomer's Bible".... leads one through the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous one devotional at a time, with multiple scripture references for each step. I am not a recovering alcoholic or drug addict. I decided to apply the twelve steps to other addictions I practice, such as overeating and overuse of hobbies and the internet, to name a few. I did my devotional, looked over the new "parameters" I set for myself, and then got a few things done. In the meanwhile, I struggled so hard against my addictions. I even snuck a few peeks at hobby websites here and there during breaks. I have such a hard time with the idea that I won't have my overuse of otherwise good things to help me escape. I am sure that, spiritually speaking, I looked like a little mouse running dead-end tunnels all morning.

God has been working on me for several months. He has been letting me know that I cannot use diversions to escape living for Him. I cannot run from the work He wants me to do. I feel like Jonah. My "whale" is my impending birthday. My impending day of death, too. One day I will stand in front of God. I know I can't earn my way into heaven; Jesus already paid for my ticket. I do, however, want to be in the heaven mindset when I get there. I already want to know what it's like to live, breathe and move in the Spirit. I want to be all about worshiping God while I have my clay suit on. A big, huge part of worshiping God is living the destiny he marked out for us. This involves evaluating our gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities and soaking them in prayer, and walking something out that gels them all. Every single day.

I seem to like to try things that don't have my aptitudes anywhere near them. That way, when I do a nosedive into failure, I can say "See, I just wasn't cut out for that." I tell myself it's just because I like a challenge. That is partly true. I really do love a challenge. Challenges stretch our brains and our faith. The biggest wedge of our time should be spent honing our abilities, though. Using them in some way. That's my new soapbox to me.

Life on the Wire

Yesterday, it was with much ambivalence that I, settled deeply into a Sunday evening rut of boredom, decided to watch Nik Wallenda's wire walk across the Grand Canyon.

It would be important to note here that I have a phobia of heights. I am talking about heights in a relatively "safe" context, such as those experienced from a perfectly functioning aircraft, or from the side of a mountain overlook with safety railing for miles. I, however, am not about to stay at home, so I get on a plane almost yearly and fly my little petrified heart out. I have been out West three times in recent years and entertain a deep love affair with the Rockies, the Grand Tetons, the granite of Yosemite. Gotta drive those winding, white-knuckle roads to enjoy those dizzying heights to their greatest advantage. Last year, as I left the postcard vistas of Yosemite, where my soul was fed by her beauty, we drove a stretch of highway with no shoulder, no rail and a drop-off of the side that stretched straight downward for many stories. It was near an area called the Blue Slide. As we got close, we saw crews hauling a car up the side of the gorge. Someone had, perhaps, been distracted for an instant. To say that I was relieved when we left that stretch and hit "safer" ground on our trek back to Mammoth Lakes is an understatement of epic proportions.

I suppose I have established that Nik and I were not exactly "kindred" spirits as I flipped the footrest out of my end of our reclining sofa and looked at the television through narrowed, disbelieving eyes. What manner of man was this? Who, exactly, does this sort of thing? Almost immediately, something other-worldly started to unfold in my cozy den (anchored to, as far as I know, completely solid ground).

As Nik put one leather stocking-shoe (his shoes were so flexible they almost looked like socks) onto the wire in front of the other, balancing his wire-walking pole horizontally, a camera gave us his view into the canyon below. It was horrifyingly dizzying to me. What happened next was that Nik began to call on the Lord in an intensely personal way. I was deeply touched. I realized that, not only was this man asking for help, he was praising and loving Jesus, revering God as King and exalting him as he made his way across this gorge, 178 countries watching by television. He acknowledged Christ as his everything, his all. He asked God to calm the wind. He took authority over it in the name of Jesus. He prayed, very fervently, nearly all of the way across the gorge. One step at a time he picked his way along this incredible journey, PRAYING intimate prayers most of the way. They were faith-filled prayers. They were humble, servant prayers. They were detailed prayers, mentioning the fact that the wire needed to be calmed down, the wind needed settling. At one point he testified that God was giving him strength. At somewhere near the halfway point, I bailed out of the den, leaving Gary to watch as I shouted questions from an adjacent room. I then stayed up until 12:30 a.m. to watch the walk in its entirety. It was like the most powerful devotional time and most riveting church service I had experienced in some time all rolled into one. Almost immediately I realized what was happening; I KNEW that God wanted me to approach my life and its myriad challenges exactly the way that Nik approached EACH step of his walk across the canyon; soaked in prayer, strengthened by faith, led by the Holy Spirit, and with a backdrop of unceasing praise born of an intimate love relationship with Him.

I thought about the things that had been worrying me lately. I thought about several forks in the road that have me confounded. Then I wondered what would happen if I trusted every step of the rest of life's journey to Jesus in such a profoundly faith-filled way. I started chatting online with an Australian friend. She told me that she had known nothing about Nik's planned walk but happened to tune in at the beginning. She said that she knew I was aware that she was not "religious" in any way, but that witnessing Nik's feat indicated to her that "faith is real." She also said that she, like me, had drawn the analogy to every person's personal walk through life's challenges. When she communicated all of this to me over Facebook chat, I had an instant realization that God had orchestrated this event and used it to communicate this truth to millions. He wants us all to know that, if we choose to walk closely with Him, He will take care of us, guide us, protect us, and lead us EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

As I nestled into bed, my heart full of the goodness of the Lord to reach out to us, to speak to us so freely in the midst of our need, I asked Him to help me to remember all of the many lessons of the evening. I realized that the fact that Nik, as has been the long-standing tradition of his wire-walking family, did not use a safety net, carries another obvious message. All of the dependencies (overuse of hobbies, overeating, overuse of the internet, etc.) that I run to to help me limp from one stone to the next in the rushing river of life are unnecessary if I will take Christ's hand. If I will commit myself to Him and soak my life in His.  While Nik picked his way along, I had also thought about the fact that the dreams God gives us are part-and-parcel of who He made us to be. Those dreams I have let die can be brought back to life under the power of prayer and the step-by-step with God approach Nik used on that wire.

Finally, I remember the moments just after the walk, when Nik spent some time on the side of the canyon alone. I imagined he was thanking God for making his dream come true. I imagined that it was an intimate moment between a loving, personal God and the man whose faith and hard work resulted in victory. How sweet those moments will be for me, too! I will remind myself today that I was not created for defeat. God has mountaintop moments for me, too. My story has not been fully written. I can hardly wait for the next chapter.

Every So Often....

Every so often, my overuse of certain adult pacifiers (Facebook, sugar/food, internet information-surfing, hobbies, ebay-browsing) creates a callous on the heel of my life, and I have to address. I'm sorry if you are a regular reader and are straight-up sick and tired of this theme. It is interesting to me, however, that I am on a tether of sorts...I have a certain weight that pings an alarm in my heart, and God allows certain things to happen to alert me in the other areas, too! Mostly it is that urgent, desperate grabbing feeling that leads me back to my Bible and to prayer. Desperate and grabbing usually leads to serious missteps. I am so tired of it.

As I have underscored in previous blog posts, a lot of sea changes happen in my life when I back off from my addictions. The first thing that happens is that fear rushes in, and huge waves of uncertainty tower over me. I don't have my life preservers. I flounder a little bit. The next thing that happens is that I start having to deal with all of the emotions that I had been seeking to numb through my addictions. Those waves can hold me underwater at times. It's a lot of work to live life without any crutches. Today I will comfort myself with the fact that Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light. In other words, if I will surrender my all to Him, He'll do all of the heavy lifting.

Today is a BEAUTIFUL day. I will place all of my fears, regrets, shame and heartache in a box and sail them down the river to heaven. God will dispose of them and He will bathe me in His light and His love. There is no detail that He is not intimately concerned with.

Making Wanky Work for Me

Yesterday someone treated me kind of wanky. You know, they acted funky around me and then made me feel kinda unwelcome. We've all been there. We can't all agree. My husband pointed out to me, in so many words, that the problem was theirs, not mine. That I had a right to the opinions I had expressed to them that may or may not have led to the wanky.

DIRECTLY after that encounter, as I was passing that way anywho, I dove into the Lifeway store. I was thinking I would get a new devotional book. Or a new journal. Or a new Bible that included devotions. Or a new Bible that combined devotions AND journaling. I was pretty sure Lifeway would have whatEVAH I needed in this regard. As I browsed the stacks, studiously pushing down images of the 47,000 Bibles, devotional books and empty journals I already have at home, I had an original thought. What if, instead of purchasing a new Bible, (there are Bibles geared to everyone from teens to homeschooling moms to, I'm sure somewhere, tightrope walkers working overseas) I tried using the "Bible That Gets Read Daily" (I could convert one of my existing Bibles to this.) Or, another brilliant idea, how about I convert one of my designer-colored Bibles to "The Bible That Is Applied Daily After Being Studied Regularly"????????

I am in full-time, full-blown, mid-life crisis mode. No, I don't have a new sports car and YES, I am far too chicken for the plastic surgery route. Yes, I am also too lazy to get one of those stringy, muscles-only bodies. But I am reassessing purpose. The thing is, without my Bible, I have nothing to strain all of the possible activities I could engage in through to get to the meat of life. Let me log off so I can start converting my pink "Ladies Who Lunch" study Bible to the One That Gets Cracked Open Bible. Watch out, religious folk. I may just start doing (or not doing) all sorts of things that shock you.

A Challenge for You, Dear Reader!

Good morning to all of my friends and family! I love you all, even those Christians who have read my blog who I will never meet this side of heaven.

Today I propose a challenge which will be much more difficult for those of you who are going through truly hard times than it will be for others, for whom life is a gentle sail along on smooth waters for the time being (all two or three of you). Why don't we spend today thanking God for every good gift He has given us? When a negative thought comes, try to think of three good things associated with that issue. If there is a call to action associated with the negative thought, thank God that you will have the opportunity to watch His creative care in action, then proceed to view the negative thing as a challenge to be overcome with God! If there is not one single thing you can do about the issue, INTENTIONALLY MOVE YOUR MIND to one of the one billion good things God has and is doing/providing! (If you are a chronic news watcher/reader, you may have to cut back for this plan to work.) The upshot of this challenge is that you will be soaking your challenges in effective prayer and thanking and praising God, A LOT!

God cares about the details of our lives, and you can trust Him with them. "Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing." (Psalm 34:10) (Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Second Edition, Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois, 2007)

God Has Given You So Much....But Have You RECEIVED Any Of It?

Spring is the King Pin. The Big Daddy Doo Rah Rah of them ALL in my book. I cannot stand to be inside when the sun is brilliantly splashing across brightly-colored flowers and lighting a cornflower sky. Even when it's hot I park it on my deck in my "spot"....a little bistro set that is really starting to look a bit worse for the wear. Summer makes me happy too. The sheer number of sunny days stacks end-on-end to equal joy that overflows my heart.

I read somewhere in a Guideposts devotional that anyone who studies birds will be enthralled with them for life. Just now as I heard their twittering calls, each one, I am sure, specifically engineered to to say something that needs to be said, I looked up and saw a tiny red-and-gray finch feeding at the bird feeder Jonathan gave me for Mother's Day. Though I hung it up there a couple of days ago, this is the very first "customer" that I have actually seen myself.

I have been on a bit of a renaissance, "seize the day" kind of kick lately...and I am loving it. God gave us life, and he is the author of everything beautiful and good. Therefore (I reason), when I am enjoying life, both my work (writing, creating, nurturing my family) and play (watching the wild birds), I am taking the gifts He has given and making a home for them in my heart. It's the same principle we employ with gifts given to us by people we love. For example, the day after Mother's Day, I took the flowers Matt gave me, put them in a spare vase I had, added fresh water, and took the ribbons that were used as handles for the paper box they came in and fashioned a lavender bow for the vase. Then, at dinner that night, his flowers were the centerpiece. I wanted him to know that, not only did I get the flowers from him, but I also RECEIVED them. Similarly, I ran out to Tractor Supply on Monday, bought seed for the new feeder Jonathan gave me and hung it in a prime spot over my deck. I then opened the blinds to I could see if any little birds were feasting at any point. When Jon came home from school, I showed him what I had done. I had fully RECEIVED his gift.

I pray today that I will RECEIVE all of the gifts God has given me. May I straighten the house He provided with joy, finding little ways to make it homey. May I enjoy the mind He provided through the reading of a challenging book. Perhaps this week I'll exult in my calling (writing) by penning a poem that, in all possibility, only He will see. I will RECEIVE His gifts. Will you?

Sold Out

Floored. Washed over with a flood of Holy Ghost power. That's where five o'clock on a Wednesday evening finds me after stumbling upon a treasure trove of Keith Green material on YouTube.

Keith Green poked his way into my life when I was around twelve years of age. I had asked Christ into my heart at four. I remember doing it. But when I was in those tender, who-am-I years, I remember Christian music was a big deal. I am a words person. I love lyrics. Keith's songs told whole Bible stories and, while I am sure they were too long for some people, I hung on every syllable. Sitting here on my beige couch in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee some thirty years later, I found tears gathering as I watched Keith address a huge crowd mobbed together in the 1982 California sunshine.

Though I had many years and a whole heapin' helpin' of life experiences ahead of me, Keith's take-no-prisoners, straight-ahead approach rang every bell in my spirit. I was already a radical. I was already with Keith in spirit, though I had a lot of maturing yet to do.

Over the years my radicalism softened. It melted under the heat of tough circumstances. It withered under the weight of other people's doubts. I let their unbelief crush my wide-eyed belief. I let the world, the flesh and the devil run straight off with my sold-out sincerity. With my radical love for Jesus Christ went my joy. With my joy went my strength.

Not too long ago I blogged that God had shown me that he would not be taking my temper as he does not do a-la-carte sin removal. He is after ALL of me. Today, I feel as if "Part Two" of that lesson has been driven home. When I give ALL to Him in sold-out, excited, championship game and I'm on the winning team joy, He gives me an overwhelming sense of His presence, His power, His love, and HIS P.E.A.C.E.

But For The Trees

A series of events happened this weekend to draw back a curtain in my mind. I was able to see that, in one area of my life, I was not seeing the forest for the trees. I had spent so much emotional effort wrestling with the trees, constantly trying to prune back areas that would grow back overnight, blocking my path, always coordinating efforts with other people to move dead limbs from the roadways of progress, even dressing the  trees to make them look like they either were not there or were a part of the décor of my heart and life's work. I even figuratively poured green paint on some of the deadest of the dead to set them out as living for the world to see. I am sure many people were laughing at or pitying my efforts. Still others were too busy writing their own happy endings with dead branches to notice my silly maneuvers.

I have learned a couple of things, both this weekend and in recent weeks. I identified one of the densest forests in my life. Now, with God's help, taking one day at a time, I will navigate this forest. I will emerge victorious. I feel God telling me to do what Abraham did, and call the things that are not (yet) as if they already were! No more tree dressing. I will serve the Lord with overwhelming joy and I WILL ENJOY MY LIFE while I am waiting for the fulfillment of what I feel the Lord laid on my heart that He would do.

The second thing I have learned in recent weeks as a product of various trials, is so simple it will scare you that it took me nearly five decades to learn. No matter what comes, no matter what other people do or fail to do, I CAN ENJOY MY LIFE. Hey, it's part of my birthright as a believer. I can have overwhelming peace, and I can B.A.S.K. in my Father's love, whether or not others approve of me, whether or not I have failed to the point that the consequences are daunting. He will never leave me. He will never stop loving me. HE. IS. ENOUGH. His acceptance, His affirmation, IS ENOUGH. I don't have to be miserable, I don't have to come and go emotionally based on my circumstances or whether or not someone else finds me valuable. I CAN and I WILL continually look for the good in my situation and in my life and ENJOY serving God. All while believing Him for the things He has assured me of that I do not see yet.

The photo I have attached is a line of trees here in Williamson County last evening at sunset. I love a winter sunset. The lack of glorious leaves makes for a beautiful stark contrast with the colors of impending night. You might say that what looks like a curse (loss of foliage) becomes a blessing under the shower of God's beauty at sunset. He does all things well, and He makes all things beautiful in his time, as a female singer on Matt's lullaby cassette I played for him as an infant trilled so softly as he slept in perfect innocence way back when. God has restored my innocence. His acts of redemption are COMPLETE.

Gliding

Not too long ago someone asked me if the title of my blog was a constant reminder of the hurt I suffered a couple of years ago. The answer was an unequivocal "No!". That's because the miscarriage pushed me back into the waters of writing, of expressing myself. It's almost as if all of the words that were pent up inside of me, my observations of all of life's beauty, anguish, beautiful anguish and stunning complexity, as layered and as fascinating as the One who created it all have come spilling and leaking out within this blog ever since. I am at that reflective age. What do I want to have done with my life and my talents when I am laying there, welcoming the angels who will carry me to my eternal home? I looked at jobs online today, watching a myriad of possible lives flip past my mind's window. I saw myself caring for other people's children, selling clothes, helping an elderly person with their dishes. None of that is bad. None of that is me.

When it comes to my writing, I only want to do a couple of things. First up, glorify God. He is amazing all of the time. He is loving in so many layers of so many colors my mind cannot possibly take it all in. Secondly, I want to affirm other people. That pretty much just leaves my blog, feature writing for a Christian or feel-good publication or some sort of Christian fiction. Yep, there's no big money in my personal future. And that feels good. Really, really good.

Beth Moore (who has not endorsed this blog, or this housewife) says in her recent lecture series on the book of Deuteronomy (and I am strictly paraphrasing here) that when we let God bring us out of our personal Egypts, or places of bondage, we should let Him take us in to our own personal promised land (place of incredible spiritual fruitfulness). If we don't we will find ourselves some place we "don't even recognize." I'm so there!!! Okay. God is bringing me out of anxiety and depression. I can't stop there! I must let Him bring me in. Thanks, Beth. You don't know me but you touched my life this week!

If it seems that this post is rambling around the county that's because this post is rambling around the county. I hope you enjoy being you today and every day. Don't let anyone else define you. If someone else looks at what you are doing and finds it to be not quite enough, just laugh to yourself. You are not put on this earth to look good to them. Your life is your gift from God and your gift back to Him. Listen to Him! He is speaking to you TODAY. A few days ago I was down at our itty bitty neighborhood ponds, trying hard to forget that there was a roaring parkway filled with cars at my back. I was grabbing some peace in an activity-charged suburb. I watched some Canadian geese line up to slide into the water for a swim. I had my camera trained on them as they eased, one by one, into the water. They look awkward on the ground, but once the waddling stopped at water's edge, the gliding began. That's what it looks like when you are in God's plan for your life.

 

Seize the Day...and Its Blessings

Nine years and some change ago, it happened that I celebrated the tenth anniversary of my marriage. My husband told me to sit in what was in that house (we live elsewhere now) what I affectionately called the "ditchen"... a kitchen with tiny, den-like sitting area attached, and to close my eyes. He placed a warm, wiggly puppy on my lap. I was truly surprised.

I held the little dachshund for two hours without letting go. Nearly ten years later, I am still in love with him. Little Charlie is still a staple of our household, close to its heartbeat. He makes it a warm place to come home to. He is a tie back to the time when my teenaged boys spent time with me, and enjoyed some of the same things I do. He is a loving, loyal, consistent presence at the center of my world.

Throughout the week that he spent in and out of the vet clinic, at times seeming to hate the very life that still clung to him, at others seeming to hold onto it by the merest thread, I had a tender experience. I have heard people say that when they believe death is imminent, their entire life flashes before their eyes. This past week, Charlie's played out before mine, in images that were poignant, leaving sore spots on my soul. I remember me, Matt, aged seven and Jon, aged three, out on a pond on a paddleboat. Charlie, frantic not to be left behind, jumped into the pond and began churning his little legs toward us in the water. "Move to him fast," Gary was yelling from the shore. He was afraid the little dachshund legs would fail Charlie and we would lose him. I remember another cabin experience. Charlie jumped from a fourteen- foot embankment when he saw us loading into the car, rather than taking the three minute walk back the way he had come, again afraid he would be left behind. Sometimes love is irrational, we have learned. I remembered photos of him at the end of a dock while everyone fished. I thought of how he ran from us after we had moved into this house eight years ago. "He is acting like he doesn't love us," Matt said, disappointed. Not so. He just needed about twenty minutes of running around time. Every time he ever made a jail break, and that was often in his early years, he would run for approximately twenty minutes, then head on home. That seemed to be his aerobics timeframe. Just a few minutes ago I remembered how I made a ten hour drive by myself to visit my grandmother when she was sick and seemed close to death. She lived for another year or so, but she was bedridden at this time. I had Charlie with me for company. He was a comfort to me in a truly dark time.

In the emotional and often scheduled chaos of life, I have taken Charlie for granted. I will NEVER do that again. I almost lost him this past week. The grief that I wore like a bulky bathrobe for several days was suffocating. The pain was almost physical. My husband, not an emotional person by any stretch of the imagination, was hurting too. This was something new for me to witness. I learned a valuable life lesson, one I hope will not fade. We simply cannot take for granted the beautiful gifts God has given us, as most will slip through our fingers at some point in time. We have to celebrate them while they are here.

Monday, Monday (Yes, I have a calendar.)

Today is a Monday for those of us in Williamson County who have students in the public schools. And, boy howdy, it was Monday morning all of the way with onions on top!!! I crawled out of bed and hunchbacked my way to the kitchen to get the coffee going. I had to go back and forth to my thirteen-year-old's room umpteen times in the first ten minutes to get him upright. Then it occurred to me that I probably should make some breakfast. It was a lot of fun trying to talk through the crack of the closed bathroom door forty thousand times to let the youngest know that the oldest would miss the bus if he did not vacate the bathroom. Imagine my unhappiness when I had to fetch the other three kids in the carpool and then swing back by my own house for a kid with no socks and shoes on, the temperatures below freezing. Lucky for me, I have great kids in my carpool and we were soon laughing and joking on the way to the middle school.

I have an orthodontist appointment to take someone to, followed by the all-important decision as to whether my kid gets a small t.v. or an airsoft gun for his birthday and, if so, which models. All in all, a tame day, when compared to the itinerary of, say, a head of state or a neurosurgeon. Such folks would consider my daily life time off from work!

I will try, once again, to be thankful. I will purposefully do what I can do to enjoy my day, to honor God in it. I will work to make Him the center of it.

Good Morning Earth Beings!

Good morning, friends and fellow sojourners on this earth! No, I am not a "Trekkie"! I simply woke today with the understanding that we are all facing something. That thing is called "life." It pitches us various challenges on a never-ending basis, and no one is exempt. Today, with the help of my heavenly Father,  I will squeeze the beauty out of it. Like I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I will decide today to enjoy my blank journal page (i.e., this new day). I will choose to celebrate the life God has given me.

About a week ago I was having a terrible day. Thankfully, it was drawing to a close. My husband would be home from work within a couple of hours. I opened my email for some reason and there was a message from him. I opened it and there was a photo of a black-and-tan-dapple dachshund like ours, except that it was short-haired. It was wearing a lovely red sweater. "Charlie (our dog) needs a sweater," was all the message Gary had typed. My sorry day took a lovely turn, and I smiled at that beautiful dog in the gorgeous sweater. May your day be filled with lots of moments that give you two perspectives: 1) Life is not only about the dull, minute details of your duties. 2) Beauty will surprise you, just when you have lost hope.

He did it!

God answered the prayer that arose from the worry I described in my last blog post. He answered it completely, set the situation to rights, and I emerged victorious. Not surprising. What is surprising is that I would ever fail to pray, ever doubt God. The truth is, I do not doubt God, I get twisted in my priorities and, like a little child at Christmastime, get distracted by every bauble the world and the devil hang in my face, then run to God in a crisis, my spirit too muddied by my sin and worldliness for me to feel worthy of His favor or to know whether or not I am really hearing from Him!

Enough! Going forward, when I fall, I will just get up. I will let the grace of God dust me off. I will believe that He cares about every detail of my life!!! Look, falling is going to happen. It's a part of being human! It cannot be an excuse to wallow in the mud. When we do that, we're just being selfish. It's not about us, anyway. Get up, let God help you into some new holy clothes, and move on. Don't spend any time in condemnation. It's just self-focus, plain and simple.

I Choose, Part II

Last night I was presented with a little opportunity for worry. Imagine that! As I drove through what was suddenly the gloom of night to pick up my son from basketball practice, I hit upon a stark truth. I started a prayer, actually, before I ever left my tiny cul-de-sac.

It went something like this: "Lord, I know that when I worry, I am simply out of touch with all that matters. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit, serving You, that's all that matters. The most important things in life cannot be taken from me, those being my relationship with You, your flowing love, my love back to you. When I worry, I am failing to surrender."  As I passed along Mack Hatcher Parkway on the short jaunt to the YMCA, I saw lights on throughout the first floor of a home in a neighborhood that backs up to the busy parkway. It made me think of the many dramas that have played out (and ended with God taking care of my family in that perfect, redemptive way He always does) in my house. "Worrying just means that I have not surrendered," I prayed. "Because Your will for me WILL be done, when I surrender."

His will for me is good. Pefect, even, according to the Bible. Why would I let my heart wander from Him, and accept the broken, disjointed nothingness that results?

I Choose

Each new day is like a blank sheet in a journal. I can write on it whatever I choose. Even if my responsibilities dictate certain activities for the day, I can choose how I will approach them and with what degree of excellence I will carry them out! I love it that I can forget yesterday's foibles and greet the morning with a cup of coffee and an expectation that today will be better. I remember hearing  a preacher (probably one of those religious men with a "pulpit" voice) saying "Some people are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good." I thought then and now that such a mindset is STRANGE! What is there on earth or in heaven other than God, my heavenly Father? It has always been my dream to write a book. Someone suggested that it did not have to have a Christian theme. "Well," I remember saying, "I don't have anything else to write about." It's true. Though my actions frequently do not reflect my innermost values, there's reallly nothing in this life outside of Jesus Christ. Everything of value is connected to Him. Back to the blank sheet in my journal, this lovely, overcast Thursday morning. I CHOOSE to see my particular journal as a gorgeous pink book with lots of flower and butterfly detailing on the cover (maybe a little cross stitch). I choose to write something inside today that reflects Jesus Christ. I choose.

Another Day, Another Crossroads

I am at a little crossroads in life at which it feels like my "get up and go" has, well, left the building with Elvis, as it were.

I have not thrown in the towel. I am not at a bus station in Idaho, with plans to go where the road takes me until the fifty bucks left in my pocket is gone. I am simply a little, well, stuck.

It's a bad feeling when you have all grades of remorse over the things you are not accomplishing on a daily basis, the one million little things that, should you stay on top of them, would make your life so much richer, so much sweeter (keeping the house pristine, trying new recipes often). It's even worse when you drag the heavy ball and chain of missed opportunity behind you (people you have not witnessed to, dinner parties you haven't hosted, the umpteen years of your kids' lives you have not scrapbooked) and find yourself hooked behind the boulder of "ALL I HAVE GOING FOR ME THAT I AM NOT UTILIZING/ENJOYING."

"Aw, you're just depressed," you may be thinking, or even saying out loud, right about now. But it's deeper than that. It's worse than that. It occured to me the other day that I have lost all motivation because I have ALLOWED the disappointments in my life to callous my heart straight over. So a few days ago I wrote all of those disappointments out in my hit-or-miss prayer journal. There were twenty-five of them. I asked God to forgive me for letting them come between me and Him, and for letting them turn me rebellious. I did not write out all of the things I am thankful for. That list would fill many books. At the top would be what Christ did for me at Calvary. How He suffered horribly, how He died to save me. To pay the price for all the stupid mess I do every day. To let me be in His Father's glorious, love, peace and joy-filled presence.

Here's to new beginnings! I get one every single day of my life.