On Dates at the Duck Pond

 

Sometimes this northsider escapes to the south hill’s Manito Park... alone in my car, latte in hand, sunshine’s warmth on my left, duck pond on my right.

It started last year as a winter, Covid-closed ritual when weighty home responsibilities cried out for respite. Now every time I journey alone to an appointment, I honor another appointment here... a date with solitude and permission to just be.

I am thankful we’re moving beyond Covid-closed, but I’m not giving up my rituals of quiet. After going hard for a decade, I found a silver lining in community shutdown - the time, space, and slower pace to emerge from internal shutdown.

Quiet and solitude can be grace not loneliness when we’re willing to sit with ourselves and ask hard questions, pray hard prayers, receive answers - both kind and challenging, and determine to move on from duck ponds in baby steps of new decision.

Like many, I don’t crave a return to the old normal. I’m savoring a slow layering back of only what fits best for an inflow of grace to overflow in Spirit to those I love and serve, instead of finite strength that hits walls and resent responsibilities.

I don’t want to frantically achieve, but to deliberately - with intentional choices - set a sustainable pace for a life that breaths freely in good times and bad, for a healing heart to sow healing.

So I weigh what serves God and serves the life He’s called me to. These I will pick up and put back on; not searching for normal, but leaning into the sleeves of grace-filled, redemptive, and transformational.

Slow-growing an abundant life.

How is your life opening up? Are you savoring any pieces of slow or places of quiet?

This Place

This place.

If you knew what it speaks every time my gaze hits these blue chairs. This place, these chairs, simple potted plants...

• They say that after several years of heaviness, fog, and fear — I want to live, not just survive.

• That I care enough to make a place of rest and uncluttered beauty.

• That I’m pushing back against hopelessness and life-sucking soundtracks.

• Finding my way back to the roads and rhythms of faith.

• Believing whispers that my Creator made me creative and it honors Him when I paint with colors and words and prayers.

• That in this world of trouble there are still delightful things to delight in — like blue adirondacks, coral geraniums, and loved ones to share them with.

I didn’t hear or see any of this while I arranged and planted — that my healing heart was spilling out in chairs and blooms and potting soil to celebrate finding breath again in the journey.

It’s still a lovely surprise.

And, even now, I remember Jesus is preparing a perfect and eternal place of beauty, rest, and peace.

This is barely a glimpse... but, til then, it’s my place.

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Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ~ Words of Jesus, John 14: 1-3, ESV

He will wipe away every tear form their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, the the former things have passed away. ~ Revelation 21:4

Prepare Him Room

Our feelings about the holiday season can be complicated. Shaped by childhood memories, tradition, and beliefs, tempered by joys and sorrows, even reflecting the diversity of our personalities and preferences, there is no one size fits all. Nor does there need to be. 

So, while all around me the festivities are in full ramp and twinkle, Christmas and all the trappings will come slowly and sparingly to this minimalist’s heart and home. Sometimes - some season’s of life - I need to clear space in my head first. Most often I don’t take the time. But this year I’m determined to exchange the baggage of holiday expectations for the clarity of my “whys.” What choices, inward and outward, will stifle them and which will breath life and peace to the reason for the season in my heart? 

While I work this out, one choice is simple. I chose Christ decades ago. 

He is all my heart needs. At Christmastime, to me, all the rest is window dressing. 

Lights, trees, and wreaths will add adornment soon, 

but for now I will gaze upon this unassuming scene, simple and quiet, 

reminding me to let my heart and mind prepare Him room.

To Have And To Hold On To

From today's Facebook post...

Before he became The Hubs, and I, his well-meaning wife, there was this moment...

Thirty-six years ago yesterday - and exhausted for reasons I'll not innumerate today - we stood rehearsing for the celebration of a covenant for which there is no adequate rehearsal. But pushing through while tired and stressed - and totally clueless to what the future held - was probably an accurate foreshadow of the gritty faith it would take to travel the years together.

We knew even then that the marriage out-ranked the wedding day. A single day of pretty does not a life make. 

Instead, the honeymoon leads to each day’s decision to love, to celebrate joys and victories, and to bear with each other’s flaws, sinfulness, and selfishness. To forgive seventy times seven... times seven... times seven. To hold hands no matter what, and to persevere when life grinds at the frayed edges of hope. To pray for one another even when faith falters and the season feels cruel. And, for us, to savor the moments after each child's wedding and the birth of every grandchild - not only in gratitude - but in sober reverence, knowing full well how many times we could have given up on each other and missed sharing these joys together. 

The pledge we made so many years ago - for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, faithful to one another always - remind me of God's promise to those He calls His own, a promise I have clung to time and time again, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5) He's kept that promise. 

But what of our promises? 

To have endured this long, you may think we've been lucky, perfectly compatible, or amazingly determined, but that is so far from true. We all have a story, and this ours: we know without a doubt that it was, and is, God's unwavering faithfulness to us, His endless grace, and the power of His Spirit in our lives that has enabled us to keep those vows. The only thing we determined was to follow Him, and sometimes that looked anything but pretty. 

So on this, our anniversary, we will celebrate our 36 years. We will reflect, be thankful, grab hands yet again, choose to keep following. And since, for us, a perfect date day always leads to a coffee shop, that's where we'll start. To us! Cheers!

Thank you, Jesus, for thirty-six years!

#tohaveandtoholdfromthisdayforward #happyanniversary #thirtysixyears#Godisfaithful

'Tis A Week Before Christmas

'Tis a week before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature is stirring
Except Mrs. Mouse

The stockings aren't hung
By the chimney with care
Santa Dude's in a box
But I don't know where

I don't own a kerchief
The Hubs sports a cap
What we wouldn't give
For a long winter's nap!

The bare tree is nestled
All snug in it's stand
Well, bare, but for lights
Deftly hung by the hand

Of a kind, handsome elf
Who just drove off to shop
So I've hauled up a bin..
Now a star sits on top

Soon I'll hang shiny orbs
Of green, red, and blue
And in no time at all
Be enjoying the view

Of my festive fake tree
With it's twinkling lights
And the window of snowflakes
They are quite a sight

Sometimes Christmas comes slow
To the outsides of things
But my heart holds it tightly
The Truth, and it's ring

For Jesus came quietly
In a Mid-Eastern cave
Left heaven to free me
Sin no longer enslaves

This is the garland
That hangs round my heart
All the rest are traditions
Not the whole, just a part

We deck halls with bright lights
For the Light who has come
He alone’s the adornment
I need in my home

B. DesChamps 2017

Colors of Quiet

When the Hubs walks in from the yard and takes my hand with a gentle, "Come on. I've got to show you something." And I see our blue beach chairs nestled in the grass facing a stunning pink-cloud sky. Then he waxes a bit about life and sunsets and holds my hand as we watch the slow parade.

It's all perfect, but for my buzzing mind that won't be still.

So even as the show and his hand beckon me to quiet places, I'm taking in the hedge that needs hedging and the neighbors old maple branches hanging in precarious need of pruning...

And inside I feel the tug of anxiousness, weights far beyond my yard of hedges and trees, and find myself misty-eyed at the irony that he who once was prone to worry sits peacefully beside me taking in God's majesty while my eyes are clouded by cares.

Yet, even as I write, the waves of coral pink upon true blue linger like a Polaroid. Memory fading in to clarity. The soft call of a heart, "Come sit beside me while our God paints the sky."

Selah...

Though my mind wrestled quiet this night, my hand found safety in his. Tenderness displayed. A touch of heaven.

The One who whispers the waning colors will prevail.

Peace awaits and I am thankful.

The Long Mourning

It had already been an emotional morning -- revisiting another grief, decades old. But isn't that the way of grief? Sneaking into ordinary days that begin the same as every other: cooling coffee to the right, discarded cereal bowl to the left, morning paper refolded, and me scrolling for news of friends, enjoying insights, perusing photos...

My husband and I were not expecting the old loss to surface, both left wondering at a hidden significance in the timing. For as we wade through this season of midlife, taking lingering second looks at those roads less traveled, we know an increasing desire to invest in things that last. Even the prodding of an old wound can be an awakening. Such was the vein of my thoughts in the aftermath: patiently unresolved, sent up in prayer, waiting raw... a familiar place.

Now, coffee fresh, I resumed scrolling posts and pics, when I found myself stilled by a new photo...
My beautiful daughter. Tucked in close to husband and friends, her sparkling soul of a smile grabbed my heart and squeezed more tears.

Seven years since she first left home, then hometown, to the south, then southwest -- my grown up girl was on her way to yet another coast, a new home, a new adventure. This snapshot a piece of that journey. Her deeply loved family will settle far from here, once again. And even as I trust the Lord's directing her path, I felt every mile as a slow gouge across my heart... I'm so wrung out with goodbyes.

Standing in the kitchen sometime later, I felt it keenly -- life is the long mourning.

I've known it most profoundly as my children moved away. Each visit too brief. Each time to go chaffing the wound of the first goodbye. At least their childhood milestones kept them within arms reach, though they whispered a misty-eyed prelude to all that is now.

I've known it in hopes deferred. Relationships broken. Friends moved on, passed away, or caught in all manner of devastation. So much upheaval added to a lifetime of transitions. Season upon season, loss and change coming steadily, often leaving no time to process. Lives and issues demanding attention. No time to feel. Just move. Do. Now.

And always... the goodbyes.

Everyone's journey with loss etches differently, but is no less real. And I'm realizing that I often diminish my own pain, sweeping it away as pale in comparison to your pain... or their pain...
or suffering of global proportions. In doing so, my grief is shamed into some dark corner with no arms to comfort, no outlet for tears, no truth to lead it back to life and hope. The weight of it, unresolved, a silent shackle diminishing today's joy. And by deciding it does not matter, I am in effect saying
I don't matter.

This revelation brings a grief all it's own.

There is much stirring in these midlife days that I both welcome and want to run from. Healing requires revisiting storms past and a closer look at new issues swirling. All that wind... messing my hair... and messing with my emotions. I don't like either messed, but the hurts have been in disarray for a while. Hair is an easy fix. Maybe that's why I like doing hair.

I'm rambling now...

...and trying to make light of things that need light. That need honesty. That need a level of brave that has me on my tippy toes, longing for solid footing. Stretching for faith. Sorting through distractions that include voices, within and without, "Hurry up already!" Voices that throw out white-washing platitudes... "Let's just plaster you over with a few positive-thinking posters. Here's one with a Bible verse! There, now! Stand up straight so we can read your posters. We feel so much better now.
Don't you?"

We're all so uncomfortable with pain. Covering over is what we do, to ourselves and others.

Sigh...

Somewhere in this jumble of frustration and fear is a woman who longs to be set free of griefs deferred. To take hold of everything for which Christ has taken hold of her. To press on.

I know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He has redeemed me and calls me His own -- deeply loved, forgiven, accepted -- I do matter. And He's gently calling me to this heart-tending, lighting up dark corners, infinitely patient in my struggle. Amidst the storm, He will bring quiet, turning gusts to refreshing breezes as the Spirit bears truth and healing.

So, despite the desire to run away, I'll lean into Jesus, then lean into the wind, and keep on walking. Sometimes pressing on feels more like being pressed, but I know I'm safe, in Him, in the mess of
this long mourning.

Because of the LORD'S great love we are not consumed,

For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning;

great is Your faithfulness.

~Lamentations 3:22, 23

To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven...

A time to weep,

And a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, 

And a time to dance. 

~Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4

 For all that gives rise to mourning, I am so thankful there remains a time to laugh.

  

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How about you? Is your pain cast aside or covered over?

Are you running or leaning in?

I pray you'll let Jesus tend your heart.

His compassions never fail.  

The Pull of Sin: How Laughter Won The Day

At an event this Saturday night, we were reminiscing with a hometown friend about the haunted house we'd grown up attending, Hagel's House of Horrors. Seems the iconic building is finally being torn down. We all had memories, including our friend who talked of being so startled that he literally punched the ghoul that tried to scare him. Fight or flight, right?

My husband, Ty, and his dad both spent some years working there. His dad often got to be an ankle grabber.

Man, I hated the ankle grabbers! Didn't you? I hate being scared!

But I digress.

The line around that place would often stretch a block or two long and they'd stay open into the wee hours. Sometimes his dad didn't get home till 2 or 3 in the morning. He had all kinds of stories. Ty shared the most memorable with us: One night, amidst all the crowds and screams and running, his dad grabbed an ankle and instantly felt something warm and wet run down his hand.

Yes... exactly.

"Ooooh! Gross!" we all exclaimed. I've heard this story many times and it's still pretty nasty.

On to Sunday... At church we began a new series about our life in Christ. As he taught through the points of who God is, who are we in relation to God, and what our purpose is, our pastor spoke of the pull of sin. How, even with the Spirit in us, there is this type of gravitational pull toward evil. (Like wanting to go to haunted houses - when you hate being scared?) It was a great, foundational message.

(Don't worry. There's a point here.)

Fast forward to Monday morning... I drove Ty to work and as he prepared to leave the car he referred back to the sermon in regards to this pull of sin. He talked of the heaviness he sometimes feels at work. The tugging. The negativity. We're supposed to take our thoughts captive, he shared, yet it's so difficult. The tug is always there... like those hands reaching out to grab your ankles...

As his tale of frustration wound down, a thought came to mind. So I looked him right in the eye and said,

"Pee on 'em and run!"

Yes, I know. I truly am this spiritual.

Well, you know what, Ty laughed so hard as he grabbed his gear. He kept saying it over and over as he chuckled, "Pee on 'em and run!" (I love it when he laughs. He sounds just like his dad.) And off he went with a wave and a smile and a nod that said, "Good one! Really good!" (You know guys and their nods.)

A tad irreverent perhaps, but I'm thinking it'll be a great visual reminder for him to douse a few flaming arrows - with truth, and thoughts taken captive, an anything else the Spirit brings to mind. Scripture is full of strategies to stand firm and combat the enemy.

While you won't find mine in there specifically, perhaps it'll lighten up a dark moment and remind you to go to your real armor.

Resist the devil and he will flee. James 4:7

There are many ways to resist.

Laughter for the win, again.

Open Hands

It came to me in a sun-soaked moment while contemplating the pages of another's story...

Learning the posture of hands held open - ready to surrender, ready to receive - had been invaluable as I raised my little ones. Watching them grow with an eye willing to see them become who they were created to become. Willing to feed and nurture, knowing the goal was flight. A strong, joyous launching into the skies of their callings. I readied my heart for their leaving with hands held open.

They were never mine to keep.

Today I saw my own life, one that is also not mine to keep. Bought with a price. Precious blood spilled, washing me so that clean, forgiven hands can come with confidence to a throne of grace that still staggers. Grace lavished. Grace unmerited. Jesus' nail-scarred hands open, embracing, forever offered... to me. Forgiveness to all who come in repentance, trusting in His saving grace.

Yet, here I stand with one hand open, outstretched, hopeful... not seeing the other, crooked and fisted behind my back.

I gave my life, didn't I? Look upon my children. Look upon a marriage still alive and learning to thrive despite all manner of opposition. Now it's my turn to have what I want. Pursue the things I imagined doing with this half of my life. To rest from the exhausting rigors of motherhood and all that I've given myself to these past decades. Can I not grab something for my own? Of my own choosing? And hold it tightly? 

This is the cry of the crooked fist. The one hidden so that even I did not see the willfulness and lack of trust.

For all my knowledge of the peace and safety of surrendering to God who is good and able, faithful and true, sovereign, wise, and loving, nothing but oppression and frustration are born if knowing doesn't open my hands... both of them.

This is where confession began today.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 

~James 1:22

Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and lean not on your own understanding. 

In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. 

~Proverbs 3:5,6

Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

~Psalm 139:23, 24

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me... far better than I know myself. I'm so thankful that you always lead me back to You... the way everlasting. 


Grateful for His open hands and new-mercy mornings.

Poor and Needy

Hear me, Lord, and answer me,
    for I am poor and needy. ~ Psalm 86:1

Monday:
As the birds chatter away in the midday sun, I find a place of quiet in the psalms. The plaintive cries of David - shepherd, warrior, king - never fail to resonate. Neither do his flaws. We are far from ideal, he and I.

Yet he was a man after God's own heart. This speaks to me of both God's heart for David, and David's heart for God.

Am I a woman after God's own heart? I am sure of His heart for me. Though it still mystifies, I know His love never fails.

But me? I am all of failure, left to my own. Left to my own? No, that is false. I am never left, but I do leave. I am all of failure when I strike out on my own and leave His strength behind.

*   *   *   *   *  *   *

Friday:
A friend sent a loving text earlier this week, nudging me to life and truth. Within it, "...Ps 86." So I read the whole thing, soaked in it... and, starting over, stalled on the first verse. "Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy." My shoulders dropped as a sigh escaped. My body crying surrender long before my heart. My will, always the last to die.

Now here I sit on the same patio days later, with lawn mower white noise as soundtrack to the white noise in my head. I'm so tired. Tired of being strong. ... I don't want to be that strong girl anymore. I can't be.  ... This feels so selfish ... What is real, Lord? What am I to be doing?

I don't know about you, but I'm wired to serve others. If I see a need, I want to fill it. It seems as natural as breathing to me. "Here am I, send me" is a line of scripture that has resonated since I was chest high to the back of a pew. Seeing things with eyes of mercy is also God's gift. So many wonderful opportunities to bring God's grace into the everyday arise from both these Spirit-born passions.

But somewhere in this, life has piled up and I've lost sight of my Source. So busy keeping my head, and everyone else's head, above water that I'm exhausted. And so the cry comes... God, is all this really of you? Is this my portion or am I taking more than is mine to do? I am so ready to let all these spinning plates crash and run for the hills... or the beach... leave town with no forwarding address. 

I'm a mess.

How desperate and mentally spent are you when you're seriously considering moving away - new town, new deal - just to escape responsibility? Have you ever been there?

If I were physically sick, I would have an excuse to bow out, but other than the occasional far away look, there is no outward evidence of how thin this thread feels that keeps me tethered to ... what? Sanity? Reality? My own well-being?

Amidst the din of such thoughts, the prayer of David has echoed all week long. "Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy." A soul cry. A heart beat. Prayer without ceasing.

It seems He's heard the echoes. Though still frayed and perplexed, I've sensed the infusing of "strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow." Forever and always, great is His faithfulness.

As I travel the life of hymn and psalm - bowing down, declaring Truth, crying out, singing praise, all while still mulling through and waiting for answers, direction, wisdom - He lives, He hears. He loves me with an everlasting love. In stark contrast to my weakness and desire to pull away from everything and everyone, His presence and power - and mercy - are steadfast.

Thank you, Father. 

We all can get buried in the issues of life. Noise abounds. Advice is everywhere. But in a world full of motivational tag lines and endless lists of the 5, 7, or 10 things that happy, successful, amazing people do to be happier, more successful, and infinitely more amazing, I am finding solace in a list of three.

1. Hear, me, Lord
2. I am poor
3. I am needy

Perhaps it's a good thing I'm too tired to remember much more.

Hope On Display

Sometimes the ache on the inside 

steals my breath

and grinds my insides

Really? Again? 

Can't this - peopling - ever be simple?

Will hope always be 

mired in muck

always grasping and gasping

for life?


Hope


It is truth!  

Not all this 

...other stuff 

that reeks of death 

and cheerlessness

expectation 

and failure


How long, oh Lord?

And why so hard?

I hate this place...


Yet on these days 

smiles and jestings flow 

Like grace

they save me

bathe me 

in refreshment

and laughter breathing


On these days 

I'll make you laugh

Life force on display

for you 

...for me

For no matter how breath-less   

I will see grace 

I must


Come what may

...and it is here again...

hope will breathe

grace ever-flowing

It's origin far upstream

where no eye has seen

no ear has heard

and no mind has imagined

the goodness prepared 

by Him who is all good


He holds me tightly

...always has

In Him

hope never disappoints

Into this parched

discouraged 

stubborn heart

He will pour love


again


And while I wait

I'll fight

with light and laughter

...hope on display

The smile that hides the battle

but battles on

unquenchable


For hope will have the last laugh

*       *       *       *       *       *       *

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined

the things that God has prepared for those who love him.
~1 Corinthians 2:9

 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory. Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

~Romans 5:1-5

Knees Bent

Do you have anyone in your life who seems to just be able to read you? The one who, no matter how "fine" you answer the "how are you?" question, squints her soul-eyes and digs a little deeper. 

"How are you really? ... What's going on?"

I have such a friend. She has been God's gift to me the past few years whenever I've attempted to move through life with my purposely evasive "happy face." Though I know better, I still find myself hiding behind a veneer at times. 

In loving and wise response, the Lord sent me a precious friend with compassionate and probing eyes - that truly sparkle when she smiles - to prod me out of my laminate life when I least expect it. 

I've come to recognize that seeing me is His gifting in her, therefore I now trust being seen. And I've learned to love this about her and about our encounters. So as we caught up via text today and planned a coffee date, something I shared struck me at a deeper level. 

Let me back up a little... 

Last night around dinner time the buzz on my phone came with the tell-tale question: "How are you?" Not able to respond till this morning, I started "thumbing" this reply and was caught up short even as I texted:

"I'm doing fine. Still finding my sea legs with life's changes and finding that knees bent..." 

Wait... Hmm... I continued: 

"...knees bent is more than just a way to not lose your balance." 

Knees bent. I picture this posture when I remember endless volleyball drills in high school. Being at the ready...prepared to move to the ball in any direction. I see this stance when I imagine a surfer absorbing the movement of a wave or a sailor remaining aright in choppy seas, thus the term sea legs. 

But even as I texted knees bent, my mind flashed to someone kneeling at prayer. "On bended knee..." Such an iconic image. This is what stopped me mid-text. The Lord spoke in that flash of a thought: 

"You will keep your balance as you come to Me with knees bent...in prayer. I am your sea legs." Selah was certainly implied.


So, now I'm resting awhile upon this thought. Mulling it. And sharing it...

If life is knocking you around, friend...bend your knees. 
If all is dizzying uncertainty...bend your knees.
Bound by sin? Bend your knees. 
Too exhausted to stand? Don't. Fall to your knees...fall in His arms. 

But must I kneel to pray? 

While kneeling is a wonderful prayer posture, it is not the only way to pray. To me, kneeling is often more of a heart posture. Come in humility. Bow your heart. Come as you are and where you are: standing at your sink full of dishes or in the refuge of the shower, sitting in traffic or in the quiet blessing of morning or late evening hours. Mid-day. Mid-text...

Jesus beckons, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." So come to Him with heart bowed, hands open in surrender... 

"I can't do this."

And as you lean into Him, He'll whisper, "I know. But I can... I will."

The words of of the Lord in Isaiah 30:15 ring true to me again today as they have so many times before, "In repentance and rest you will be saved, 
                                            In quietness and trust is your strength."  

Prayer. Knees bent... Come to Him in prayer. Often and always. Breathe in life and grace, strength and comfort. Then stand and find your balance in Him.

*       *       *       *       *       *       * 

Thank you sweet "how are you?" friend, and thank you, Jesus, for sisters who are Your hands and feet to draw me out from my veneer and back to You...to vulnerability and truth.

Now I come, with knees bent...

Good Friday

When your need for Jesus' sacrifice on your behalf 
is so evident that you can hardly get your stiff neck 
to turn to the cross...that's Good Friday. 
That's today. 

Oh mercy... 

Sometimes grace is unbearable... 
"Be gone! Leave me to my death!" 
But it remains...
The weight of offered forgiveness 
pressing upon cold heart,
Pressing, pressing, again and again, 
seventy times seven...it perseveres...
Repentance.

Reviving...

Gasp of breath, flood of life. 
Again I breath,
again give thanks. 

How can I bear up, 
stand stiff, under Your grace,
oh God...
when the weight of cross and blood atonement, 
in the face of my stain, bends 
and woos most stubborn heart? 
How can I? 
Why would I?

Oh God...your mercy.

*       *       *       *       *       *       *

Good Friday...

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ~Roman's 5:8

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord ~Acts 3:19


"A thousand times I've failed
Still your mercy remains
Should I stumble again
Still I'm caught in your grace
Everlasting, your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, your glory goes beyond all fame." 

     ~From The Inside Out, Hillsong United

Sorting the Pile

So many days are not tidy.

So many circumstances just won’t be tidied, not any time soon, anyway.

Part of me is ok with unattended piles and those metaphorical dishes left undone, but there is another side that wants order…punctuation, as in, tidy periods that cross things off the list. Essay-like seasons with beginnings, middles and ends. Complete sentences. Unlike that last one, or this one.  They're only fragments made to look tidy by punctuation, not ideal, but real. Isn’t this how I think and how I often speak?

Now I’ve jumped from housework to grammar with no clever transition…

This, too, is life.

The pace is dizzying. No time for grammar or syntax or clever, just a constant pace of ideas, events, and emotions flashing past at paralyzing speed. And because all disciplines tend to intersect, science brings inertia to bear. When I feel that sudden inability to move amidst the rush, a twenty-three car pileup of thought comes crashing from behind.

Today is pileup day.

It happens.

I could have ignored the pile, but somehow saying what is has helped sort it out. I know the pile or the pace does not define me, yet I sometimes trip or get run over. 

A friend of mine spoke truth today…declared what is, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…” (Proverbs 3:5) and she added much encouragement. This passage in Proverbs, a well-worn road in my heart and mind, continues, “In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will direct your path.” 

Praying what is. This, too, helped me sort the pile.

Truth does that.