Diary of a bookstore junkie


We enter the bookstore and I am transported to my happy place, I gaze at the displays much like a diabetic at a See’s candy store. So many stories that beg to be brought to life in the reading! We head for the racks, a free afternoon and the possibilities are endless. Stress evaporates like a vapor. I am drawn to the tables, arms laden with treasure. Too good to be true, a table in the corner….we can’t believe our fortune as we unburden ourselves and settle in. Life is good today. This is one last grasp at the weekend before it all starts over again, we seize it, cherish it. One of mind and spirit, we will know when it is time to go without speaking, and the time will be right.

We fall in to the rhythm of page turning, enjoying a little slice of life here in this corner of the world. People watching is part of the fun. A college student nearby, stacks of papers ripped out of her binder, her pager nearby as a reminder of outside responsibilites. The number display is faced away from her, as if she doesn’t want to be reminded it may go off at any moment. A man with his back to us laughed out loud every once in a while, attracting stares as he did so. An elderly couple teetering to a table complained about the price of the coffee and cookies they had just bought. College girl’s pager goes off and she goes to use the payphone, coins clinking as she feeds them in.

It is tempting to eavesdrop as two older gentlemen sit down nearby and complain about the Rio Salado Project and living in Mesa in general. One of them says, “My wife doesn’t know it yet, but we are putting our house up for sale, then we are outta here.” I wonder when he will let her in on this?

Pages continue to turn, stopping every now and then to share what is interesting; we drink up the wonderful rhythm of sounds, the whir of the cappacino machine, rising and falling of conversation, the rustle of pages, all blending in and around background music. I sense that these are very precious times to be cherished. What a gift to enjoy these simple things with a like-minded person I treasure.

“Hey,” she says, glancing toward the display, “Did you see those chocolate cupcakes.”

“Yes,” I say, “I saw them when we came in.” I have the peripheral vision of a squirrel when it comes to spotting chocolate.

“Do we dare?” She says.

“Yes absolutely,” I say, “A perfect day like this calls for it.”

1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven Ecclesiastes 3:1

Counting answers….


I recently bought a prayer journal. I have always kept a journal, but as I finished my last one awhile back I sensed the need to close that particular way of journaling. Having a blog has fulfilled something in me that journaling once did, plus I have a weakness in my right hand that makes it impossible to write for a prolonged period of time.

I love this taking note of prayers. It makes me realize how many things I have taken for granted; how many prayers He has answered through the years that I have forgotten. But I don’t want to forget.

When you really start to pay attention to what you pray and how many times He answers, it fills you with a gratitude that does something to change you from the inside out! It’s like what happened just this morning. I was struggling as usual in my prayer time. Many times I have been wondering when I am going to start my “real ministry” my “life’s work”, you know, that undefinable “thing” that God really wants me to do. I prayed when I turned fifty last year that I wanted to make the second half of my life count for eternity, really put my life on His altar.

Here it is 6 months later, and not much has changed, or has it?

I wondered, what am I really doing for Him? Who am I impacting? What do my small words matter? Maybe you feel the same things as you walk your child to school, fix a meal, clean the house, commute to work. My answer came as soon as I opened my email this morning! It might as well have been sent from Heaven.

I realized through that email that whatever we do, if we do it as unto the Lord, He blesses it. When we are a child of God that little thing matters because He sees our heart, our true motive. He takes that action that we might think is very small, and multiplies it with His Holy Spirit. He sanctifies every action and makes it an act of worship. Because we love Him, he notices it! That other person is blessed too as a result. So take heart today, you may feel your many tasks go unnoticed, but God notices every one!

“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.” Col. 3:23,24 NLT

He answered my prayer this morning in the words of a dear friend who has been blessed and comforted by my blog. She and her husband are going through a very scary health issue right now. Just the fact that I can give her any comfort at all, means the world to me.

So I am counting answers to prayer today, starting with this morning’s email #231, my brain worked last week and I learned some new things at work #232, Mom has turning point with her knee #233, I did not have to do the task I was dreading at work #234, my brother is having success with his diet #235, good prayer times #236, blessings of more rain on the roof #237,Praying with gratitude that He hears every one #238 and sometimes just trusting in the silence is an answer……..

Join Ann along with me and many others here to continue counting our gratitude:
holy experience

Not just a good teacher…..

These are some of the things I have heard people say about Jesus…..

“He was one of the great moral teachers of our time”
“I believe He was a very charismatic individual and a great leader”
“A very great religious leader and someone we can look up to”

Here is what He says about Himself:

“I and the Father are One” John 10:30

“Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

And here is what God the Father says about His Son!

“But of the Son He says: “Thy Throne O God, is forever and ever and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom, Hebrews 1:8 and also, Hebrews 1:10 “Thou, Lord in the beginning didst lay the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands;”

This puts Him smack dab in the middle of creation! Equal with God!

And of course, there is that empty tomb…..

Jesus said, “Mary!” Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!” Jesus said, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'” Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: “I saw the Master!” And she told them everything he said to her. John 20:16-18

I celebrate with Mary today….

Spring is coming

Daffodil Hill, Sutter Creek, California

On the news today I saw New York once again buried in snow. I am sure they feel that Springtime is not on their horizon anytime soon.

But eventually it will happen. Snows will melt, green shoots of life will appear, everyone will start to thaw out, all the storms will be a distant memory.

I used to love Valentine’s Day in California because all the daffodils and tulips would start to break through the brown soggy earth. We would all feel hopeful that is really was coming. Then sometime in March, all the cherry and peach orchards would burst through in clouds of color. It was glorious while it lasted but then many times the March winds and rains would come and knock all the blooms off! In April we would go out and buy our new Easter dresses, hoping against hope for a warm sunny Easter. Sometimes we would get it, but I remember just as many times, running from the car, raincoats over dresses, wrestling with umbrellas that bent upwards against the onslaught of wind.

But we would always know that Spring was coming.

Here in Arizona, it always feels a bit like Spring, so sometimes I actually forget what time of the year it is! (Except for summer of course) So for me, Spring will officially start Monday March 1st. I have promised myself a new Easter wreath and my Easter flag will go up as well. I do these things with a smile, remembering other Springs, and pray that the east coast will get some relief soon.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; Song of Solomon 2:11,12

Anyone have any favorite memories of Spring?

He saw you….


“He saw you cast into a river of life you didn’t request. He saw you betrayed by those you love. He saw you with a body that gets sick and a heart that grows weak. He saw you in your own garden of gnarled trees and sleeping friends. He saw you staring into the pit of your own failures and the mouth of your own grave. He saw you in your own garden of Gethsemane and he didn’t want you to be alone … He would rather go to hell for you than to heaven without you.”
— Max Lucado

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. – 1 John 4:9-11

He loves us, He really loves us! Hard for me to comprehend a God having this kind of radical love. The same God who can create and destroy with a breath would actually go to these lengths to save me and bring me back to Himself…..there are no words to express it.

Help for depression


A prayer for those depressed today…..
You feel just getting out of bed is a tremendous struggle, and small decisions are overwhelming. It is tangible, this presence, like a heavy cloak you can never get out from under….You are tired of carrying sacks.

Tired of carrying heavy sacks. Sacks of regrets, sacks of wrong choices, sacks of guilt for not feeling happy, not feeling like the free child of God that you are.

Life has become like flat gray fog of going through motions without joy; limbs feel impossibly heavy, like slogging through mud. You feel sad about this but helpless to do anything about it.

Even things that you should be looking forward to have become a burden and a worry.

Startlingly, you realize that it has been an incredibly long time since it has been springtime in your heart; although you can remember when it was and it feels like a distant dream, like maybe it happened to someone else, not you.

Take hope today, for He has heard you and already answered.
Please know that it will not always be this way.
Especially know this, you are not alone.

It takes tremendous courage to keep going, know that about yourself, you have not given up! Take hold of this one shred of evidence and take comfort.

And never believe the lie of Satan that tells you that you are this way because you don’t love God enough, or not as close to God as you should be, that you are doing something wrong.

Most of all, do not try to go through this valley alone. It may be that God’s answer to your prayer is the hand of a friend or loved one helping you out of the pit.

Get help from others who have walked this path and found their way to the other side. Most of all, know that you have placed your faith in the One who has conquered all shadows forever!

Remember the stone that was rolled away for you and me; may His healing power bloom life back into your heart today. Amen

Romans Ch. 8 v. 38-39. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Depression comes in many forms. I am no expert, just one who has felt these feelings from time to time in my own life. Sometimes it comes as a result of a tragic circumstance; sometimes it is a result of habitual negative thinking that forms a lifelong pattern. Hormones can play a big part too especially for women. The kind I am writing about today is the kind that comes for no particular reason, it just comes. I pray that if there is someone reading this that they confide in someone and get help, not try to fight this alone.

For one Pastor’s experience, go here

Confession


A few years back the Pastor of the church I was attending was giving a message on confession. In the sanctuary strategically placed were four huge wooden crosses. I didn’t pay them much attention figuring that they must be part of the set for the upcoming Easter celebration. At one point during the sermon we were told that if we had anything that we needed to confess to God, anything at all, we should write it down on a small piece of paper. “By the cross,” he said, “you will find a hammer, just nail your confession to the cross and leave it with Jesus.” People started going forward with their scraps of paper. At first there was some tentative tapping from the first few. A little ping here, a gentle tap there. As it went on though, the tapping turned into what sounded more like angry pounding. It began to sound like a construction site as the hammer blows echoed off the walls!

It was there that my very strange sense of humor betrayed me and I let out a muffled giggle. I was instantly elbowed. I couldn’t help it. I was positive I was going to hear an electric drill fire up next. Maybe it was nervous laughter. After the service I found out that some people were extremely moved to tears as they heard the pounding of the nails and were relieved of their burden. The next Sunday the crosses were still there, the confessions plastered all over them. I suppressed a morbid urge to go up and read them. Is it because I want to know that others struggle with the same things I struggle with?

With all church practices, we need to go to the Bible to get our rules about Christian conduct, for that is our “rule book” per se. So I did. I came up with 53 references in the New Testament and 51 references in the Old Testament, right off the bat.

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16

So according to Scripture and all the references I found, it would seem that God cares a great deal about confession, both confession to Him and one another. What is it about confession that is SO difficult? We try to stuff it down and it just gets bigger, like a self inflatable mattress in our soul. We think maybe we will ignore it. It takes on a life of it’s own and begins to affect everything else in our lives.

It used to be a common practice to stand in front of the entire church body and confess. Could we even imagine that happening now?

Satan knows that confession makes us free and he will try to do everything he can to keep us from unloading our burdens. He whispers all kinds of scary scenarios to us to keep us from being free. He wants us to think we can fight the battle alone in isolation. Confession is the beginning of restoration, and there are times we need to confess to God, and there are times we need to confess to one another. There is tremendous power in it!

I confess with tears today:

Forgive me Lord for lying.
I tossed out what I thought was a
harmless lie, but I know that no lie
is truly harmless, it hurts You and it
hurts me and the one I lied to.

When I told that man that I would look
at his petition at the library “on the way
out” I knew that I had no intention of
stopping. Why didn’t I just say I was
not interested?

Forgive me also Lord for wondering why
certain individuals are still on the
earth.

Who made me God? What makes me think that
my days are any more important than theirs?
You number all of our days, Lord. You hold
them all in Your hand. If they are still
living, breathing, then there must be a
reason, for it is by Your great mercy
that we all still live.

Their time is no less precious than mine.

Help my heart be open to see and address
needs of others in my path….

In Jesus name, Amen

Ezekiel 11:19 “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh….

Sounds of life…..


I have never had any sense of smell. When I was very small, I found it curious when someone described smells. I thought maybe I wasn’t concentrating hard enough, maybe smells were so subtle that you had to really be paying attention. I would hold things up to my nose, inhale…..nothing. Every now and then I will still try, with the same result. Finally my Dad told me that my Grandfather, his father, never had a sense of smell either.

Maybe that is why I am so in tuned to sounds. They have always been a big part of my life, my memory bank. Thomas Merton describes some sounds he remembers too in his journals.

Noise of the cook chopping or pounding things in the kitchen at Douglastown. Noise of tires singing past the house on the road outside, in winter or in autumn when the road is light and bare and hard. Noise of a fire, cracking and snapping in the grate, just lit. The sheaves of sparks that rush up the chimney from time to time. From “Run to the Mountain”, the journals of Thomas Merton

They were part of his memory bank, a well that he drew upon from time to time, I suspect, as we all do. So now I will add some of my own, starting with yesterday morning. All these adding to the multitude of blessings I continue to chalk up.

#221 The gentle pit-pat of rain on the roof, sporadically increasing to a roar from time to time….making cats very nervous so that they run for comfort.

#222 Soft piano, coming from the radio….music, always music.

#223 Birdsong that breaks through, ushering in the morning and bringing in the dusk of evening….day done, rest from labor, no more regrets of the day.

#224 Song lyrics that bring joy and comfort to the hearer. Makes you feel you are not so alone, that others feel these feelings too.

#225 Loved ones or strangers lifting their sweet voices in song, to me there is no more beautiful sound than the human voice singing, laughing, it lifts hearts, makes you want to laugh even though you have no idea what is funny. There is something universal about it and it brings people together.

#226 Thankful for the memory that brings certain voices back even though they may be long gone….what once brought sadness and grief can now with time passing bring a smile.

#227 Two simultaneous purrs from very contented cats, one sounding very much like a pigeon or dove, and the other louder and deeper in tone, sounding more like a small muffled motor. Hence his name, “Briggs” for Briggs and Stratton motor company.

#228 The squeak of the floor by the door when you hit it just right; that means coming home after a long day, or just coming home from something else, but it is always a sound of welcome.

#229 The squeak and bang of my parent’s old screen door. This happens about 50 times a day at their house.

#230 Always, always the wind in the trees. Some sounds are more noticeable for their absence. I miss this sound a lot, not many big trees where I live. When I go up north or back to California I drink it in like cool water.

I wonder about the sounds of Heaven…..I anticipate that nothing down here can even come close. Another thing to look forward to there, as well as getting a nose that works!
Still counting blessings because He is worthy of our counting!
holy experience

Holy Places

Love this photo taken by Jenn posted on Arizona Central

This is typical of the weather in Arizona. I had blue sky on one side last night coming home and a black cloud on the other….blessed blessed rain. I know many tire of it, but not us. We need it, we crave it, we long for it!

There was a chill in the air this morning so I put on my “big” robe from L.L.Bean, the one that never fails to take the chill off.

As I lit my candle in my prayer closet, also known as the shed, I looked around. I love this place because He meets me here; amongst the tools, garbage can, shelves filled with storage boxes, saws, Christmas decorations, and everything else that can be crammed into a very organized 10 x 15 room! Anyplace can be Holy where God is, and He is everywhere!

I heard the mourning doves calling as I opened the little door window. I sipped my first cup of coffee and prayed, “Thank you Lord, that I can share my first cup with You.” He smiled.

I think He loves my prayer shed too.

I heard the morning bird call and then….could it be? I heard little gentle rain drops blessing me with their presence. I kept praying. It was a troubled prayer because it was something I was worried about. Then, as if God made His reply in the rain, it came magically, steadily, beautifully down on the roof.

I lifted my arms in praise, that is answer enough for me, Lord! I didn’t miss it today…..thank you God for giving me this moment, a Holy moment. I got to sit and listen to the rain in Your Presence.

What an unspeakable gift.

I’m glad He picked the early morning light to come back from the grave in. Thank you Lord, for the hope of the morning.

Small Miracles


Thank you, Lord for small miracles. Help me never to take them for granted. Let me not lose the sense of wonder in every day things like watching a sunset or birds singing for no reason, or the calm and stillness of the end of the day; a full moon. Today out in the parking lot at work I heard the call of geese. When I hear that I always stop and look up to see the perfect “V” formation in the sky. In this case there were only two geese calling to each other, but as I watched them fly, each in perfect symmetry, talking their private language, I let them carry me away. Sometimes even far from nature, in our manufactured world of noise, dirt, and buildings, nature breaks in and finds us; seeks to remind us who we are and where we came from. At times like that, I try to pay attention.

Help find little moments to pause in wonder at all you have created……

“He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight. He covers the face of the full moon, spreading his clouds over it. The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke. By his power he churned up the sea…. By his breath the skies become fair…. And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! How then can we understand the thunder of his power?” Job 26:7-9, 11-14