Gratitude

Putting myself in timeout

It never fails….just when I start to get a bit sanctimonious and pat myself on the back about something, God reminds me that I need to practice what I preach. I was thinking I was doing a very good job of just relaxing and enjoying the season when everything just snuck up on me. I am staring at four computer screens at work today and realized that unless I get stuff in the mail TODAY, it will not get done….

My wonderful friend, being the thoughtful angel she is, finished icing all the sugar cookies yesterday……they were really works of art, they all looked like little stained glass windows; I wish I had taken a picture! She really surprised me and everyone is enjoying them today at work…..

So right after I mail that box I plan on finding a quiet place to reflect on all the things I am so very grateful for this year, and of course the real reason for this season…..I think I need a little timeout tonight in my prayer shed!

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6,7

All God’s Special Needs Kids………

We see mess……we want order, perfection….

She sees an opportunity for fun…..

She sees no problem with playing in dead moldering mulchy leaves………in her P.J.s

To her, the lines between work and play are blurred and everything becomes a game. Maybe we can all take some lessons from Lauryn…..
I was thinking about my niece this morning in the wee hours while I was praying for her.  She is in a special needs class at school mostly because she talked very late, and showed a few signs that have been attributed to Autism. I thought, we really are all God’s special needs kids aren’t we?
We walk around and nobody knows what we may be carrying inside……Burdens we carry, scars suffered along the way, we look and act just the same as everyone else, but really, we should all be in a special needs class.
Trying to recover from monumental loss and pain and not knowing how
Hurting from a divorce, reeling with the pain of rejection
Bravely taking care of everyone while you are screaming for help
Thinking you have everything figured out
Piling up success and accomplishment because the child in you still wants your parents to notice
We could all use help, all of us have problems and “special needs.” We put kids in special needs classes because they are not making normal progress, they have developmental differences, but the truth is sometimes we all feel like we are not making normal progress, we get stuck. We can’t go forward or back and we feel stagnant. We try to recover from blows that life deals us and we need help to know how to get back into the flow of what we call normalcy.
We have a God who specialises in taking care of our “Special Needs.” The ones we all have……I am thankful today for so many times that He has helped bind up my wounds and set me back on the path of recovery, or sent others to do His work! I know many today who have excelled in school and life, but are broken beyond repair because of a trauma they never expected. I pray they seek healing from the only One who can. “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,” Isaiah 61:1
Thankful today for the simple joys too……playing in leaves, decking the halls for Christmas, conversations by firelight, good books in a cosy corner, prayers said in the dark, playing on my old school playground, dry places in the rain, hearing an eight year old laugh, watching her love her “babies”, being able to see colored leaves as little miracles, Christmas music, humor in every situation, wonderful friends, evening in the park…….#560-#574

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photos from my iphone

On missing prayer time…..

“Oh Lord how I have missed this time with You. I was doing other things for awhile, important and necessary things, but I have missed this coming before Your throne of Grace….this time of morning quiet. I have had snatches here and there, but it’s not the same.
I know that I can pray anywhere, at any time, but this place is special, Holy…..it is my own little hollow, a little carved out place we have made together. When we come together again, its like we were never apart; a bit like an seeing an old friend, but much better. I settle into Your rhythm of eternity and timelessness, and once again I feel small next to You, and the world gets smaller too.
I back away, realign myself to You…..Your Holiness, Your timeless Grace. I listen and hear You in the quiet. I listen and repeat what You hear day in, day out……”Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is, and is to come.”
One Holy praise for each, Father, Son, Holy Spirit
I reflect once again on Your coming. What it meant then and what it still means today. I can only bow in humble adoration as a simple shepherd did years ago by lamplight in a stable.

“My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.” Psalm 131

Right after I wrote this prayer in my journal, I opened the Bible to the above passage……

Happy Thanksgiving to all…..

Psalm 100
A psalm of thanksgiving.
 Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!
 Worship the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing with joy.
 Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
go into his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and praise his name.
 For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
 
I loved this photo because I have a Mom and Dad who send me leaves in the mail……..A very Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving to all, from my prayer closet to yours……
 
image from photobucket

Count it all joy……

God always answers prayer, sometimes the answer is silence……

Ever been in silence that seems so deep it almost has a volume all it’s own? A snowfall comes to mind, or standing in the woods in the hush of morning, just before dawn. Ever been in the middle of some task, and God drops one of those quiet thoughts into your mind? It comes unbidden and settles softly in the space of whatever you happen to be doing. Like a gentle snowflake that lands on your palm or tongue…..we can either recieve it or brush it away. You know it, it is that still small voice of the Lord.

I got one of those yesterday. It started with a crumpled napkin. I saw it and got a flicker of a thought, lighter than a feather it came. “I should save that,” I thought, as I collected it off the table……You see, when you have suffered a loss, a grief that is total and unexpected, you tend to think like that every now and then, even years later. It carves out a place, leaves a mark, changes you forever. It says, hang onto that because they might not come through the door ever again. Save that coffee cup because it was what they were using, and you may never see their face again. Not in this life anyway…..It says, keep that because she or he loved that, it was his, it was hers….A husband, a wife, a best friend, a parent, a child.

Loss carves a hole in you that you always seek to fill. But there is only One who can….

But here is what I realized yesterday, and not for the first time: I am thankful for what I have learned from my loss, because I cherish the people in my life more. I truly do know that it may be the last time I see them, this side of  Heaven anyway…….Grief teaches you to pay attention. To learn what makes the ones you love light up. Compliment them on big and small things……see what makes the life spring into their eyes and makes them walk a bit taller. Notice when they look down or troubled. Never hesitate to do these things, you will be so glad you did.

God can make something beautiful out of all our losses, whatever they may be, and once we have made it through we can be intruments of His comfort to others. In time we can rejoice. Hold fast to His hand and let him carry you into the daylight of His grace. I rejoice today because of all God has brought me through……It is Thanksgiving in the midst of everything! Or maybe in spite of everything.

I am filled with humble gratitude when I think of all the ways He has revealed Himself to me, I just can’t help wanting to share it…….”So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6,7

Photo of japanese maple leaf from birds and blooms dot com

A Rational Response

Faith is a rational response to the evidence of God’s self revelation in nature, human history, the Scriptures, and His resurrected Son. W. Bingham Hunter, “The God Who Hears.”

In my reading of Scripture today about Jesus resurrection I was thinking about how people want proof that God is real, proof that the Bible is real, proof that Jesus really was raised from the dead. If they only had “proof” they say, then they would believe. Yet there was proof. Is proof:

Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:19,20

All the evidence is in…….Jesus was seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses after the resurrection. Nobody ever denied that the tomb was empty, but instead they offered up different theories as to why it was empty….by His very resurrection from the dead, He proved that everything He said was true. Mary was the first to see the empty tomb, then she ran to tell the disciples. Peter and another disciple ran to the tomb and saw it empty…….”Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.” John 20:8-10 

But Mary stayed behind at the tomb and Jesus appeared to her……… John 20:11-16

He is a rewarder of all who seek Him.

“A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.” Ravi Zacharias

Continuing my gratitude count today, gratitude that God has left so much evidence around us…..He wants so very much for us to find Him, to know Him……Thankful today for the endless traces of His presence…..Just enough oxygen for us to breathe, just enough warmth from the sun, just enough heartbeats to keep us going, just the right amount of blood that pumps through, carrying life……shelter from the elements…..laughter to give us hope, just enough gravity to keep our feet on the ground and keep us from spinning off the planet, enough wind to make us wonder…..enough faith and joy to keep us from giving up, and more than enough love to save us, even when we don’t deserve it…..#538-548

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My Redeemer Lives

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. Job 1:25

The reason why Job could go through everything he did and still rejoice in His God means that we can too. He was able to rejoice because we serve a God who is very much alive……He is fighting for you today.

This lesson was brought home again to me in prayer this morning. I went out, my prayer journal and Bible in hand, lit my candle, sat down ready to hear from God in the silence, except I didn’t hear silence, I heard the hum of construction. It may as well have been as loud as a set of drums. It was all I could hear.

Then I decided to write a prayer in my prayer book. This is as far as I got before my penlight went out……”I am standing in prayer for Elaine today…….” No more light. So I said the rest of the prayer for her. I felt the particular helplessness of knowing that my best friend is in a pit slugging it out with the enemy and wanting to help her out of it. The best way is prayer…..

But the hum was so distracting. I decided to go and get my head phones. I could still hear the construction hum so I put a song on. This is where God was leading me all along.

Nicole C. Mullen singing, Redeemer

The message was heard loud and clear……….

Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning?
and Who told the ocean you can only come this far?
and Who showed the moon where to hide ’til evening?
Whose words alone can catch a falling star?
 
Well I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives:
Let all creations testify
Let this, life within me cry
I know my Redeemer lives, yeah.

Tears came…….He has already given us the victory by raising from the grave, thank you Lord, how could I ever forget, even momentarily…..My prayer this morning was answered…..

After I heard the song, I went out and saw an impossibly bright star toward the Superstition Mountains…..”He who has named all the stars and hung them in space has the power to bring us through…..thank you Lord! I rejoice in God my savior this morning.

Slowing things down……

Our lives are frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify…..Henry David Thoreau

Where did October go? One of my favorite months of the year and it was gone before I could turn around. They have started the warmup and it is working it’s way to a fever pitch……It starts earlier and earlier each year. The advertisements pitching their stuff. Better stuff than last year, faster stuff, smarter stuff, more clever stuff, but stuff all the same. I have nothing against stuff, but it is the way they assault us with it that bothers me, and the fact that they use Christmas to do it. It makes me want to say……STOP! Even before it starts.

I am putting the breaks on right now. I will think, dream and pray about Advent and what it means. I will pretend I am in a cabin in the woods, alongside my stack of books and journal, watching multicolored leaves twirling outside the window. And hoping against hope for snow. Mentally I can do this. I will also not berate myself for being behind on Christmas baking. I will conciously make a decision to take pressure off, not put it on. I will look forward to the turkey and not get distracted by what comes after.

I will do some things for others…..Most of all I will enjoy these fleeting months, because they will never come again just this way. I will praise the Lord for all He has gotten us through this year, and know He will still be there at the beginning of the next.

I saw two shooting stars yesterday, ever seen two in one day?

I should finish “Radical” today so tomorrow or the next day I will post some concluding thoughts…..

The Wildness of God

“There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.” John 1:6-9
There is an unsolicitious and ungenteel quality about the desert Christians that makes them especially attractive in our current climate of sentimentalized, “feel good” spirituality…….The desert, as a place where one expects nothing, becomes the source of the hauntingly unexpected: this unpredictability formed the robust spirituality of the desert monks.
Not surprisingly, their God was no different from their place. Theirs was not, as John Crowe Ransom once described, a “God without thunder,” having been thoroughly housebroken and made presentable to the cultural elite of the day. Their God remained mystery–feared certainly, and much loved, but never understood.  Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

Nature is wild and untamed……it mirrors something of God because we can’t control it. I think that is why we are so attracted to it. We must also realize that we need to have a bit of healthy respect for it as well. The desert I live in has been tamed, groomed to be fit for humans. We have lawns, watering systems, good roads, every convenience we could ever want. It resembles little of the barren and empty place it started out. And yet, just on the edge of where I live is a vast and lonely place where coyotes cry and desert critters thrive and survive….God has taught them how. He will speak to us in this place if we are quiet and still enough to listen. I have heard, when I get away from the freeway, the traffic, the noise that people make, when I close my eyes I can hear the voice of one crying in the wilderness carried across the desert winds…..

“Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough places smooth. And all mankind will see God’s salvation.” Luke Chapter 3: 4-6

Continuing to count blessings today and show gratitude for all the ones who went before to show me God’s ways……Sunday school teachers who volunteered their time. People who took an interest and answered questions I had. Parents who showed me God through nature and through their lives, and through the Word. Friends who have prayed with me through the years. Countless Pastors, Pastor’s wives who have faithfully preached in season and out of season. Bible study leaders who open their homes and their hearts. The Holy Spirit, teacher of all truth. Bloggers who write what God has layed on their hearts to share. #517-526


“In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world.” John Muir

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Let your light so shine….

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16

Today in my morning devotion time I opened the Word and started to read it like any other book.  I saw the words, but not with my heart, with my eyes and my mind. I find that is the danger for me and reading plans. I am task oriented, I have an agenda, I have a list. I like to check things off, and this was one more thing I was going to check off  “my list for the day.” Then the Spirit nudged me……like He so often has to do. I should have known I could not get away with that.

I went back and I prayed for the Spirit to open my heart to those most precious words of His and I read again. This time I felt what I was reading. Sometimes I lose touch. I think, “Oh, I have read these passages so many times, I know this.” And God says, “No, you don’t, read it again.” He is so very patient with me.

I waited for a passage to speak to me, and it didn’t take long. This from Matthew 5:22. “But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” Wow!  I immediately thought of my daily commutes on the freeway. There is certainly no lack of fools in our world today. Think of the current ledger of politicians running for office and see if a modern day equivalent of  “Thou fool” doesn’t float right to the surface of your tongue. If it didn’t you are a much better person than I! In fact, I was talking to my Mom just last night about “one of those fools” I didn’t care for who is running for a seat in the senate.

It is so easy to get caught up in negative talk and commiserate about how bad things are in our world today, but there is still much that is good in it. The world needs our words of light. When we speak words of light into our world, it pushes the powers of hell back and brings the Kingdom of Heaven in. Conversely, when I call someone a fool, a bit of the darkness of hell flows into me. I can feel it.

I think sometimes we don’t speak more positively to the people around us because we don’t want to be accused of wearing rose colored glasses, or not being in touch with reality, or being a “Pollyanna.” But this is not the case, we know exactly how bad things are, and just how bad they are going to get. We have read the book of Revelation!

So speak the words of light today…….we have them straight from God’s Word! One of the best ways to speak light in the darkness is to count out our multitude of blessings. Today I continue the count with Ann and many others……open windows after a long hot desert summer, fresh baked honey cookies, a few surviving petunias after the bunnies got done with them, outdoor conversation around the fire, a God who loves me more than I can imagine in spite of all my failings, flannel shirts, a little niece who went to school one more day, wind chimes accompanied by a cool breeze, no more hum of the air-conditioning, holidays that are coming, and a peaceful weekend after a difficult week! #507-516

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