Prayer

Closer to Love

bravery, Children, courage, Faith, family, grace, Motherhood, Peace, praise, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Teaching, Trust, Vulnerability, wonder

I wonder if your first waking thoughts are placed there mid sleeping and waking by God as His way to say,

“Begin again, let’s go!

Follow my lead, follow your leader.

Follow your heart, your soul.”

I woke, thrilled to have slept past 7 and kept my eyes closed for a few minutes.

Did not reach for my phone.

I thought and thought again,

“Stop looking for likes.”

Then wrote it down, hoping it more deeply would sink in.

I’ve just spent almost an hour in between making breakfast and coffee and conversation about new cars with my husband, tracking down which blog post was most “liked”.

It was in 2014 and it was entitled “not knowing”. It was about my children and God and well, being okay with not knowing.

Stats show which day is best, which theme more enticing and I suppose which posts are so good that people click the little star that says “like”.

Actually, I don’t have a whole lot of “likes”. I do have a lots of views and viewers and some commenters who I always thank “for reading my words” and mean it, sincerely.

I was curious, then got weary of discerning my “likers” based on my stats.

What I saw was my life since 2014, I saw God’s guiding, his pulling me from the ditch of doubt, His rescuing me before I fall too far from the pit of pride and pedestal.

So, I’m more settled, less seeking and more set on seeing me as God sees me and

“likes” me.

Prayerful, this morning in my journal about writing for “Daughters of the Deep” and for Lisa Brittain’s “Saturday Shares” and other places my soul feels led and prompted by prayer and the Holy Spirit.

Places and people who I’d never encounter were it not for words and God, women like Nan Jones, women who write and women who don’t write; but, surely are praying. I am worried other making a list, it’s so vast, I’d surely forget one or two or three who make up my “community”.

This morning I read from My Utmost for His Highest and the thoughts are lingering and lined up, as did the other words and verses established for today.

I’m getting closer every day to the me God sees.

Not yet arrived, surely on my way though.

Noticing and embracing words like these, believing waking thoughts as God’s instruction and loving affirmation.

As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul.

My Utmost for His Highest devotion

Closer to love.

Closer to God and speaking more bravely.

Two times last week, I believe my words came as a surprise to others (and me).

I’m so glad God brought you into my life.

Me, through God

The first time, a crowded restaurant and as a goodbye to our unplanned encounter.

The second, a parking lot after “so happy to run into you” send off.

Both times, I was sure in my saying so and both times, the ones who were with me, their smiles spread wide as the sky and we parted, all of us thinking of God.

So, if you’re reading this,

I’m so glad brought you into my life. So happy He brought us both here. me

Called “Precious”

Angels, Art, bravery, courage, Faith, family, grace, Motherhood, Peace, Prayer, rest, Stillness, Teaching, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

Y’all, I often minimize things or maybe it’s my pattern of not getting too excited about the way my life plays out. It’s not humility, the good kind of staying meek and quiet; it’s truly being joy-filled to the point of oh, my goodness can’t believe I’m seeing this stuff happening in my life.

It’s quiet confidence making itself embraceable, tangible.

And to think,  I’ve only just barely begun to surrender!

 

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“Do not fear, only believe.”  Jesus  

 

You might find it small. I consider it God showing me more clarity every day and that I am loved. Nan Jones found my blog through another blogger. She asked me to write. She first asked me about what is happening in my life now, what are my prayers, what is on my heart. I answered by telling of my prayers for my daughter’s healing and she asked me to write about it.

At first, it was all fluff then I decided to be truthful about fear and believing, the lessons I’ve been learning in my listening.

She’s sharing my words and my art here.  I am so very grateful for yet another person God in his infinite wisdom “enlarged my borders” with, people who I never knew might be my teachers, my guides, my spiritual pointers of the way to walk, to write, to be unafraid.

We’ve never met, yet she says she sees me as “precious” and all I can do is smile and cry just a little to know that I am called precious. Finding God in Quiet Confidence

 

Thank you, Nan! Thank you so!

Wording and Waiting

Angels, Art, Faith, Peace, Prayer, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

I am strangely becoming more settled.

Countering where I have been with the counterintuitive tilt of my thinking.

I’m sure it’s such a joy to be met by words proclaiming revelation or breakthrough.

Words that invite, oh, let’s watch her now, let’s see if she means it this time.

Then realizing where this morning has me is contradictory in a gradually huge way.

Gradual, a word that feels like ease. Feels like the quiet me.

Accountability matters to women, I read. It’s why we don’t talk about diets, don’t announce our goals, hesitate to bring notice to our habits.

Last year, around this time I decided I’d have a “breakthrough” year. I did and I didn’t.

I didn’t write the manuscript. I did not finish and have barely begun.

I regretted, I panicked, I wanted to hide and I considered all of the let downs.

Myself and others.

I wrote more. Had a chapter published in a book, my name on Amazon. I painted so much more. I read, I noticed God and I was given opportunity. Given not chased after.

I considered new perspectives.

I forgave myself over time.

Asked a friend to hold me accountable, the book and all…all.

A few days ago, I read a verse that most of us know.

I read it differently because of that peace, that change in perspective.

“Be still, and know that I am God! ”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭46:10‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The weight of the words, more easy to know, the meaning slightly shifted either all of a sudden or have been all along.

The hashtag “breakthrough17” I boasted of this year enthused me early on and later led to hectic half-hearted writing and rushing.

Days were hectic, my writing a chore, a demand unmet and self-discipline became self-destruction.

I’ve been praying daily in December, equip me to write, help me to focus and give me words that heal not hinder, provide hope, not harm. Honest prayers.

The verse above I saw before of magnitude and strength, words that made sure I knew just how much God can do.

And I always focused on that and still do,

Still know that He is God.

But, as I sit this morning deciding to accept all I’ve not done thus far, I’m content in what has come already, what God has brought my way in ways of opportunities that have eased me forward.

Not pushed my way through…not at all breakthrough speed or fashion.

But, breaking through like the sunrise this morning, pink ribboned sky now fully shining and making shadows, warm and soft.

Yes, this is God’s way for me to see His plan, for others to see Him through me.

A dear, kind friend told me of visiting someone grieving this Christmas.

It wasn’t necessary or required he check in.

But, he did and she thanked him, adding she knew it wasn’t something he had to do.

His reply has changed my heart a little, has softened my striving, has granted me grace in all I’ve not done and had decided was failure.

“I didn’t stop by. ‘Someone Else stopped by through me.” J.

Oh, the humility of stepping aside while stepping towards what God designs.

His reply me that my work, my art, my words will fail me, will fail to come, will fail to find favor, if they are the measure of me.

Has reminded me to be still.

To be quiet.

To be confident in that quiet, that stillness.

He is God. Greater things are still to come.

Still, perhaps my word, “Still18”.

Cats, Cards and Christ

Advent, courage, Faith, grace, heaven, praise, Prayer, Redemption, Salvation, Trust, Uncategorized, Unity, Vulnerability, wonder

Christmas cards fastened by clips to twine looped like a garland and no idea why, but I left this little kitty cat on the shelf.

Except it’s where it’s always been and I believe I brought it home from my mama’s or I picked it up when we all went “junkin'”.

I pulled a piece of greenery from my centerpiece and decided the cat should wear it around its neck.

Made a little circle, too small and decided oh well, I’ll add some twine, make it fit.

Now the black cat with polka dots who lives on my shelf looks different, looks like Christmas.

This morning, I read a verse from John. Lots of people know it, children can recite it; it’s a simple one that has another that follows and expands its meaning.

So many times I read only part, retain only a portion, there’s always more for me to know, more to surprise me by my knowing.

About God’s ways, His love, His wants for me, for us all.

This verse is best left simple, best brought to mind at Christmas. We may revisit Luke or Matthew or Mark; maybe Isaiah, looking for the story of Christmas.

We might remember the prophecies of old or cling to and listen more with an idea of hopeful truth that yes, a baby was born a long time ago and it was a sweet, sweet story, so spectacular it seems a fairy tale.

But, simply not so. Spectacular yes.

But fairy tale, no.

Our lives are changed because God made it possible for them to be changed, made new.

Because God loved the world He created.

And since it all got and gets a little sideways still

And He knows it. He gave His Son, His only Son.

Jesus.

Christ.

So, we could have eternal life, not perish in the mess we’ve made of what He created.

In the Book of John, Jesus explains his purpose to a Pharisee named Nicodemus who was a ruler and had a very hard time believing what Jesus made so simple to hear.

What is still so simple to hear. But hard to believe for some, hard to accept.

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”

‭‭John‬ ‭3:16-17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I sent a few cards this year, not nearly as many as I should.

Small and simple little cards with a sweet tree on the front unadorned with lights, just a tiny tree.

I added to the message of Merry Christmas

only the beginning,

For God so loved the world…

And then I signed, “love in Christ, Lisa”

Hoping I’d left room for longing to know more or that I reminded all who already know and like me can always, always use reminding.

That God is love and that Jesus was born to save all who will believe.

believe, life will surprise you…

Brandon Heath

(lyrics I rest with)

I Say I Believe

Advent, Angels, courage, Faith, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

I just spoke with a precious soul who says she feels stuck. She says she can’t fathom how things might be because all she can think of is her guilt over what has not been yet.  All she can think of is this possibility that it might not turn out right again, that what she knows God wants her to believe might not be true.

She calls me her angel and I tell her  “Oh, I’m no angel.”

She said she read this morning about waiting and she felt the most real feeling that clear skies and days are coming soon. She said she felt God telling her that.

And so I told her, then hold on tight to that. Feel the feeling you have when you’re sure good is coming, when you believe what you’ve just said to me, silence the voices set up by your past that say nothing good is ever possible and all your dreams are empty promises.

That’s tough for one conditioned to expect hardship, tough for one accustomed to trauma and only beginning to climb the ladder of seeing more clearly what she might take the chance of believing.

She cried and she cried, streams of tears I thought I should lean towards her and catch in the palm of my hand.  Stop using “stuck” I told her, that’s not a word God would use to describe this time; God might use wait or trust or believe; but, I don’t believe he told you this morning you’re stuck.

She agreed and was better, only momentarily I know, still waiting to see if things will come true. We’ll talk again soon and I’ll remind her of taking steps and I’ll tell her not to be afraid, this time next year,  your life is going to be very different. Her eyes were brighter than before. She smiled, nodded. She knew.

I believe it.

The Book of Luke opens with the account of a righteous couple, Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah. Both of them old and with no children.

Elizabeth was barren. Zechariah had no son to carry on his name.

He was a priest and a dutiful man. I would imagine had accepted their marriage would be childless and they were set in their ways.

The angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and told him, you’re going to be a father.  Elizabeth is going have a son. He should be named John and he has a purpose, God is giving you this son and this son, John will prepare the way for Jesus. His purpose will be to ready the way for the Lord.

Zechariah was afraid. He questioned the possibility of this outlandish announcement by an angel who appeared as he carried out his priestly chores.

And then he was silent.

Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure this will happen? I’m an old man now, and my wife is also well along in years.”

Then the angel said, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news! But now, since you didn’t believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time.” Luke 1:18-20

This passage stirs my curiosity. Did Zechariah persist in his argument? Was he made mute because of his arguments and insisting impossibility?

Or was Zechariah silenced for fear that his questions might lessen the magnitude of the angel’s appearing, of God’s plans for the coming John, making the way for Jesus?

Zechariah could not speak until the baby was born, required to wait until what he doubted was fulfilled.

Was he simply not prepared to share a story of such magnitude?!

Everyone must have wondered. He exited the temple to a throng of confused faces, tried to express what had happened using his hands in motion and then went home to wait with Elizabeth, hidden for five months. Was she afraid of announcing her miracle, was she waiting to be sure she was far enough along to make known she was with child?

Was there evidence of what the angel said?

Did she wait for the feeling of tiny foot in her torso or the flutter stirring up next to her soul, that mother thing we call intuition?

After six months the angel appeared to Mary, told her about Elizabeth and told her she too would conceive a baby. Mary was afraid, how could it be possible? I am young. I am a virgin.  The angel told her of Elizabeth’s conception, told her “nothing will be impossible with God.’ Luke 1: 37

And Mary began to believe and hurried to visit Elizabeth to see.

She walked through the door and the baby inside the womb of Elizabeth sensed the spirit already in Mary and responded with joyous movement.

Sort of an affirmation, yes, it is true.

They decided themselves both blessed.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Luke 1: 41-45

Meanwhile, Zechariah remained mute.

I imagine he had things to say, just couldn’t figure out how or maybe a welcome relief to be unable to speak.

Nobody waiting to listen, oh, his words would surely need to be profound.

An excuse for being sure enough of his words, certain of his proclamation, excited over his announcement.

I met with a friend last week. Gave her the first chapter of a book idea and asked her if she found it too brave.

I’ve asked her to be my writing accountability partner.

Told her I’m stuck.

We talked of how I’m conflicted over some things, write brave and authentic truths or water down and make pretty at least for the few minutes someone reads it to feel they might make it through.

I expected her to say don’t unearth everything.  Don’t be too hard, don’t cause others to worry or to feel uneasy. She said let God bring you the things needed to remember, don’t fret over what you can’t. Time has passed. Good will come from recollection you’re supposed to tell.

We talked about one memory and I shared with her what a revelation it was to hear a long ago memory of me, not at all pleasant; but true.

It was strangely affirming.

We both smiled and she said “How many women have felt the same way, regretted the same behavior and yet, long for someone else to say “me too?”

I’m more silent now and okay with it really.

I’m not unable to write, just waiting to be sure that the words I write will be the ones that God wants others to hear.

Like Zechariah, when questioned, why are you not naming your baby after yourself, to carry on the name, this is what’s expected and you finally got your chance?

Not just doing what’s expected.

“No.”, Elizabeth said and he agreed, we will do as God has planned. His name will be John and when asked to record the name in writing, the name Gabriel, the angel had advised them of, Zechariah’s voice returned, he could speak of his son.

He waited and in time, found his voice still there.

I will not give up on the story, the one I call “The Colors of My Bible”. I’ll just not rush it, conflicted over how it will be welcomed or whether others will approve sufficiently. I’ll wait until the words come back, until the time God knows I truly believe in His design, not mine.

Because, I’ve not been visited by an angel; but, I refuse to believe this idea just came from nowhere, the telling of my colorful redemption story and the women who gave me hope.

I may just write about the dogs for a bit, paint some angels, jot down my prayer list, being sure to include “walk closely with Jesus”, a new daily one.

I may simply write about geese that fly over or the funny way it sounds to tell of “my embroidery” hobby.  I may slip in some stories about my family. I’ll continue to write about hope and heaven.

I’ll write about noticing God still.

Until I’m able to write the words so clearly, so truly, so hope-filled that I will be able to say Yes, this is my treasure, thank you for this treasure I thought impossible.

I’ve just written over 1400 words here and I’m betting someone’s gonna say, “Man, she’s all over the place!”

But, it’s good, good for me to write. Good will get better, better will get right.

For now, I’ll hold onto that feeling, the feeling that good is coming.

Not stuck, but waiting.

The truth I say I believe and told another the same.

Good things are just around the bend.

Linking up with Jennifer Dukes Lee at Tell His Story.

Peace – Conscious of Christmas

Advent, Faith, grace, mercy, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

Is it harder now to find places to sense peace, to be conscious of Christmas?

Most things we do feel like a production, a scurrying, a hurried and hectic undertaking.

I spoke a little too sternly yesterday about all the noise driving me crazy. Another person said they were getting “addled” and I was thrilled to know someone was likeminded.

She quickly told me though, not nearly so much as you.

Yes, I know.

I knew.

Others just waited for the noise to settle down as if they all were resting in a bubble of peace, a comfortable and softly draped wrap of serene.

This week of Advent, the preparation for the birth of Jesus, asks me to consider peace.

On Saturday morning, I stood close to the edge of wooden dock on a misty cold marsh. Large oaks all around and their branches fat from age and layered with growth of bright green fern.

I considered and am still, could this be my church? Is this place and sometimes others I find, the place I am made to worship God?

I assure you it feels quite so.

Free of busy and business, just me and sometimes one or two others approaching whole body and soul a place we are called to by our longings?

A congregation consisting of white birds trying to avoid our cameras and a wide, wide sky?

I’m sure that’s not God’s desire, a solitary island dweller, he didn’t design me to be.

But, oh how at peace I am in the places I get alone with quiet and Him.

To notice God.

I’m different, I suppose, craving quiet and being made anxious by disorder.

He is my peace.

Not my surroundings nor those in my midst.

He himself is my peace.

I’m reminded in the quiet.

Peace that can’t be manufactured, demanded or insisted upon; but, that emanates from within me keeping me calm when all around is so very uncalm.

That’s the call to Christmas, the call to seek peace, surround ourselves in it and get immersed again in the story of the starry night, the Holy Night when peace was born.

“Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth”

The weary me, the weary world rejoices.

Night, divine. A night divine.

The night, the day, the moment divine when peace came near, made itself clearly known.

Still does, I call it ” noticing God”.

“In sin and error pining, until He appeared

and the soul felt its worth.”

O’ Holy Night.

Oh, to be seen as one with worth because of the Holy night, the Holy one, not at all because of what I do or anything I’ve done.

It’s been a tough couple of days with shifts and situations gone awry.

Not sure why things happen, wonder what might could have made it different.

Things that made, make no sense.

I bolted from church last night, it had become too noisy, too busy, too much a feeling like a clamoring for what might make one feel worthy.

I drove under the starry sky back home like escaping.

And I rested once home and woke this morning to read about peace, this week’s Advent focus.

Found myself peaceful, again. It was a welcome, I assure you, to come back to a place of peace.

A friend heard I’d never read a special book at Christmas and so she gifted me last week.

I’m grateful for her deciding to send it my way, gifting me in an intentional way.

I love her for it.

I broke my rule this morning about pencil marks on pages and I underlined and circled the words that spoke peace to me, made me more conscious of Christmas.

More understanding of peace

More conscious of Christmas.

And peace because of Christ.

So, if you’re alive today, sing redemption’s song.

Louie Giglio

Sing your song.

Do your dance, your quiet sway of peace.

I know I’ll do mine.

Joy Finding

Advent, Faith, family, grace, heaven, praise, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Salvation, Trust, Vulnerability, wonder

We have the same reason for joy as they did way back then.

I pray I’m intentional in my choice to let Christmas be all about Jesus. Here’s the truth, I believe, the joy stealers don’t rest at Christmas, there’s no reprieve from those set on negativity and strife. And then there’s unexpected sadness that makes no sense and seems to happen more at Christmas. Or maybe in our seeking to be joyous, we’re thrown off by its unfair interruption.

I’m not sure. I only know that we each can choose joy and like someone told me yesterday, I was caught off guard, “your face seems happier.” And I had prayed earlier that God would put someone on my path, literally wrote this in my journal,

“God send someone to my path who needs to know about your grace.”

This person who told me she saw a difference in me, I said to her, smiling over her words, “I’m getting better at understanding God’s grace and it’s no longer a striving thing, I am not working so hard for something that requires nothing of me, God’s grace.”

My day started this way yesterday. How can I not proclaim the joy as I circled prayers today, some still praying and this one given an asterisk for answered?

I consider it joy.

You know that joy when a longing you’d gotten a little disheartened over slips in and comes true in a way unexpected?

That’s the joy and joys I’m keen on noticing now.

If it takes writing them down or slowing my morning to be certain I give them their due, my time and attention, I am more aware because of doing so.

I think of my grandma’s little hands, her practice of keeping her “memorandum” book and I look towards the jewels she meticulously pinned into bright ornaments, I see her joy in her art.

I see joy, find it here.

Most especially when it comes in a way surprising me, a way that speaks truth to our Father’s all-knowing.

Like an angel I suppose, saying hold out for it and hold on sure but tenderly to this hope, your joy is coming.

You shall bear the light of this truth, that when you believe what you can’t see, you will get to see it come true.

Bear light of it just like young Mary, a mother unprepared and untouched by man, bearing the Son of Man, light of the world.

Remember the time another Mary and her sister Martha chose to believe?

Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”  John 11:40

I’ve not known joy quite so miraculous as the risen dead, still I’ve known the joy of Jesus coming through, on my behalf, the behalf of those I love.

Known the joy found in what we believe will be true.

Jennifer Dukes Lee shares her thoughts about how to “Prepare Him Room” and a story that is oh, so very relatable, the task of Christmas decor and how we should simply rest in the beauty of our homes, stamped and shaped by our hearts.

Visit here:

http://jenniferdukeslee.com/prepare-him-room/

Linking up with Kelli LaFram, at Quietly Through

http://quietlyreminded.com/2017/12/07/confess-sins-quietly-thursday-link-20/?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)&mc_cid=68c27bf7bd&mc_eid=8fccf10d46

Hope First

Advent, Faith, family, grace, praise, Prayer, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

I forgot what we did the Christmas we were last with my mama.

It startled me, my forgetting and then I remembered.

I remembered the beauty, her beauty that day.

I reflected on how things felt tragic and unusual; but, so very special.

Tomorrow begins Advent, something I know so very little of if you consider scripture and scholar as basis for my knowing.

Tomorrow begins with hope and hope is meant to cause our contemplations, to give notice of our waiting.

I’ve arranged my Advent cards, not the place before, not the grand garland the width of our fireplace.

Instead, a corner dimly lit and a chest of drawers I got from my mama’s. The top of it cleared to be adorned with hydrangea stem stained mason jars, now containers for bright tiny ornaments.

The backdrop, an abstract ocean piece painted by my daughter, the cards looped with copper wire and positioned in a peak and valley sort of way.

I’ll glance that way, have been since I couldn’t let be til it was done and finished late night last week.

It’s a simple arranging of Advent decoration.

More hopeful than before it seems. No daily task of studious examination of each day’s card.

I’ll not do this this year.

Instead, I’ll love its entirety.

I’ll enjoy it as is.

This Christmas, I pray and prayed this morning.

“Remind me of you, Jesus”

“May I remind those around me of you.”

May my gentleness be evident, so much so evident, one may sense

The Lord is near.

I texted my cousin, the one who gifted me with the Advent Cards, a surprise two years past.

Told her I loved her, wished her traveling mercy and grace.

She thanked me, said “oh, thank you dear Lisa for being in my life.”

And strange you may think, my strange reply I replied

to which she answered, “Amen”.

Let it be, Jesus. Let it be Jesus in me, my December prayer. Me

So, the first Sunday of December says be still.

To consider hope.

To gaze upon our pretty spaces and places and find it there, in our midst, our hope.

Our hope that was born in a place hidden and curious, but long ago ordained by God.

A place surrounded by a starry sky you and I’ve most likely not seen the likes of.

May I never lose that wonder.

May I ever hope for the wondrous wonder of Christmas, of Christ.

May I linger unlabored there.

Looking upon reminders of my hope.

And memories recalled and cherished even more, strangely hopeful now despite the sorrow that accompanies them.

It’s all wonder.

It’s hope and it’s grace that’s brought me thus far, to here, to now to celebrate Christmas untainted by sorrow and more painted in soft colors of hope.

Hopeful.

“The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.

Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭60:19-20‬ ‭NIV‬‬

You as well, I hope and pray are

Hopeful this Christmas.

A Blessing Simply

Children, courage, Faith, family, grace, marriage, mercy, praise, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Salvation, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

Yesterday began with creamy oatmeal, warm in my lap and just a touch of the crunch of peanut butter.

I believe I shall have this today as well.

Made a pot of soup later and had a whole house quiet til afternoon.

“It’s a blessing,” he said, as I questioned whether I’d need a jacket to walk the dog.

The temperature just right and he’d come in from the country place where his parents lived before they died.

I ventured out and walked all the way around. We met three little girls who were new to the neighborhood and bouncy with their bubbliness “a dog!” I heard one say.

So, I eased him over and had him sit while I guided their tiny hands, one at a time to pet him. They smiled big dimpled smiles, one with chocolate on her cheek and their hair was all tousled and let be.

We walked on and I unleashed him on the trail, he started into a little trot and I walked slightly ahead then called him to come back.

As we turned back to the main road, I saw them there, their backs bent and their faces close the ground. The rhythm of their work so simple their eyes never rose to meet us.

An empty lot, a new home unoccupied and the lawn already laid down in pieces, someone had smoothed the pine straw in a sort of kidney-shaped border amongst the pines.

A few more feet we walked and I saw the determined face of the wife, not the husband. Her long gray hair fell over her face, her hand smoothing it behind her ear, I thought her eyes will see us; but, she carried on with her picking up and dropping into a bucket.

Not a sound, not a word, no invitation for how are you or what a pretty day, obliging conversation.

I thought of their tranquility as I walked on, thought of their solitude and silence, together.

The task at their hands wasn’t their responsibility, but a choice.

As if all the pine cones had been picked up from their yard already, just around the corner and they sought and found another place to do the work of their hands, the work of a simple life.

We came to the place where the three daughters now live and seeing us from far off, the oldest must have planned it just right as they skipped towards the end of their driveway to see the dog again.

Fascinated by his softness, their voices soft and admiring, I allowed them a little more time to be little, captivated by their sweet faces and the joy of their conversation.

We headed back up the hill, the big Lab relaxed into a saunter and I thought wow, he was right, it’s a blessing, this day.

This simple day.

The evening came and I thought of them again, the couple uninterested in us, singing the song of solitude, of silence, a simple life.

Then lyrics found their way in and the thought of this season, a simple season of love and grace understood more clearly, held much closer to an embrace. I thought of Alison Krauss and went searching because I remembered her wanting something simple like that.

Simple Love

A love song seemed fitting, more than enough, so I sang it.

Yesterday was simple, in its solitude. I believe today I shall find it too, grace, mercy, peace, and love. Find it unexpectedly when not looking or not so a surprise in my seeking.

Because yesterday had room to breathe, it was made of open spaces and things just fell into them without agenda. And God gave me grace and since I’d decided, not sure why, it didn’t seem an intentional choice, to rest from berating myself for what not done; or the agony of the fear over never being done, I was open.

Open to mercy, to love, then came peace.

“May God give you more and more mercy, peace, and love.”

‭‭Jude‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I’m linking up with others here: nitaojeda.com/2017/11/26/imm-november-12/

Jennifer Dukes Lee spoke so much truth here, thank you seemed like never enough:

http://jenniferdukeslee.com/dont-get-know-time/

Familiar Things

Children, Faith, family, grace, grief, heaven, Prayer, Trust, Unity

The sun coming in and landing on the succulents.

The Labrador looking longingly out the tall windows.

A phone call before 4, my teacher daughter calling to tell of her day, even the ring or ding, somehow familiar.

My morning, familiar. The sound of stirring of his spoon in coffee cup, so very noisy, intentional and purposed, everything my husband does, he does to be sure it is done.

The habit I have. A little bullet dot by my prayers, to flip the page back the next day and hope to turn the dot to starlike asterisk.

These things, I cherish. They are my familiar.

Last night, we had food together and everyone was seated, we would bless our meal. My sister in law, Julia came and just my daughter, her husband.

My husband would pray and end with “keep us in your will”, instead I asked Julia to pray.

She took a second after saying okay and then prayed.

“You pray just like MeMa. I heard MeMa praying for a little bit.” my daughter said, and we all we’re quiet in agreement, had a little moment, I thought of her prayers, familiar, comforting, an unexpected joy.

I know I needed.

“…always pray with joy”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭1:4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Linking up with others today here:

http://fiveminutefriday.com/2017/11/23/fmf-link-up-familiar/