Finding peace begins when we stop trying to figure it all out.

In the hushed silence bare light of morning, I kick the walnut Sydney loves to bat around and it skitters across the floor. The air outside is heavy with heat….too hot to pray out there, so I sit here reading Holy moments between the pages of Emily’s book. It’s here that He meets us. In the quiet, in the background of two cats snoring and my tailbone sore from sitting here on the floor by the bed.

Behind the peace, behind happy and content there are flickers of fear being tamped down. It seems to be a by-product of living this life, the wondering how long anything settled, sure and peaceful will last. But I have learned the secret of culling His peace here and now, for the Heaven on earth moments Jesus talked about are found in the miracles of each day. Real faith is found in between the everyday wrangling of trying to figure it all out; wondering how in the world the pieces are all going to come together.

Peace begins when we figure out God doesn’t expect us to figure it all out, but to trust that He already has.

My dreams are restless…..night before last, everyone was ready for the party except me, everybody lined up ready to go, polished and looking their best and I was late. I could find nothing to wear, even my underwear disappeared.

Last night it I was in my Grandmother’s old house on 501 South Lee with a black panther, I was thankful for those two pocket doors between the kitchen and living room and the kitchen and the den. I slipped those closed as the panther prowled beyond them.

And then I threw a party where everyone wanted to leave early.

Across the 600 plus miles between here and there, I feel my Mom’s burdens as she struggles with things that are difficult and things she can’t do at all. The sand in the hour-glass I see in my mind is pouring through faster with each passing year. A daughter understands a Mother’s burdens more than anyone and we both know it.

I also see my Dad longing for the peace that comes from not being able to do as much, fix as much, be as much in his own eyes, but not in mine.

It’s these in between times where fear nips at our heels at the uncertainty of life that our faith grows. It learns to live and breathe when we swim to the surface and break free, to stop thrashing about and see the ring God throws over the side of the boat.

I am so grateful for the peaceful rhythm that flows through these days. It’s what I have right now and I don’t want to miss anything by worrying about what will happen tomorrow. For God already has that.

He holds us all in His palm. He says: “Look behind you and see everything I have brought you through……..that’s your future!”

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it. Isaiah…..30:15

God speaks……….

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens; By His knowledge the depths were broken up, And clouds drop down the dew.” Proverbs 3:

“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; Acts 17:24

“He who made the Pleiades and Orion And changes deep darkness into morning, Who also darkens day into night, Who calls for the waters of the sea And pours them out on the surface of the earth, The LORD is His name.” Amos 5:8

“But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you; And the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you. “Or speak to the earth, and let it teach you; And let the fish of the sea declare to you. “Who among all these does not know That the hand of the LORD has done this, read more.In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind?” Job 12: 7-10

God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one bloodevery nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Acts 17:24-28

What a wonder that this God should want to know me personally, and wants us all to know Him the same way. He is the God who walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening……and who came to this earth as a man, walked where we walk, had conversations, ate food, had dust on His sandals and went back into Heaven where He intercedes for us to this day. His Spirit rests with us here and now, giving us strength and empowering us to do beyond what we ask or think…….the fact that we can experience Him here and now and say with confidence as we pray in a little quiet room or in our car, on the way somewhere, “I am with God and He is with me”……that is the miracle of the Christian life and experience. That is our reality. Who in the world would not want that?

God created animals because…………

Why did God create animals? The answer is simple and it’s the only right one. Because He loves us. Everything He created is an expression of His love for us. And because He knew that although human interaction is necessary for our well-being; He also knew that sometimes people would disappoint us. Animals have no ulterior motives, they don’t even know what that is.

Their love is a free expression given with no thought of what they will get in return and they remind us of the joy we had as children when we skipped no matter who was looking.

They will receive your hugs when others have backed away at your smell. They don’t care, in fact they like it better when we don’t shower. And they will never ask how you ended up on the streets because some of them are there too, just trying to survive. They will sit at your feet and listen impartially and give no argument, somehow you know they’re in your corner. They will huddle close when the nights are cold and you wonder where all your friends went.

They offer no judgments, and when we return their devotion, the rewards are endless. In their eyes we see the reflection of the God who created them to be our companions in this world which can sometimes be a lonely place. God knew that we would back away from Him too, and that’s why He created something so easy for us to love. For who could be threatened by a wagging tail or a winding around of your feet at the day’s end?

Animals have saved the lives of their people time and again. Read the stories of those whose lives have been transformed and healed from pain and addiction all because they discovered there is tremendous power in looking away from yourself and focusing on someone or something whose needs are as great or greater than your own. That rescuing an animal lost, alone and in distress had the power to bring them both out of the pit.

Why did God create animals? He created them in hopes that you will return their love and appreciation for what they give us, and that in loving them, our hearts will turn towards the God who created them and loves us with a love we can scarcely imagine.

We all know that there are times in this life when our sorrow is more than we can bear.

Crushed beneath a weight of sadness we go off to find a quiet place and sit for a while. We feel a brush of fur nudging our elbow, or a cold nose under our hand. We find they have followed us, sensing our loss. Tear fall on soft fur and they offer it up with no reservations. That’s what they do. And that’s what God longs to do too. There is nothing we have to do to earn His love, we had it even before creation.

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. Acts 17:27

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:24,25

Photos found on Pinterest by Chris Teso, Tina Carter, Ana Muller, Dan Lee and the last one is via Google images of Street Cat Bob and James Bowen. Read about their inspiring story via their Facebook page.

Donation to the pets of the homeless foundation may be made here if you feel so inclined.

The Wheat and the Tares

It all started last March when I heard about the two suicides……two young people that couldn’t find any hope that things would get better. One of which was the neighbor of my Aunt, parents finding what was left of her. The beauty and the soul and the perfection that was her life. And then a week later, a phone call. My cousin’s son did the very same thing. In disbelief I almost dropped the phone. To me, there is no sadder horror than that for a parent.

And the recent events in the news, coming one after the other, so much so that we can barely keep track of them all. Planes shot down over Ukraine……a bank robbery, a hostage situation and a highspeed chase on the very street I drove down when I was back home two weeks ago. Bullets flew, hundreds of them. And an innocent bystander coming in to do her banking was caught in the crossfire.

Her daughter waited in the car, then watched horrified as her Mom was used as a shield while they got away. She texted her Dad……”They have Mom.” She didn’t come back.

You would think all this would be reason enough to give up on this life. We live in a world where heaven and hell coexist like the wheat and the tares that thrive side by side. And yet…..

There is poetry and music and art and crowded sidewalks and family and friends, and the smile of a child. And it all adds up to an incredible relentless beauty that tugs at the soul and won’t let go.

I can’t ignore the drops of rain that fall quietly on the pond like a prayer, the relentless beauty that falls all around us on any given day. There is a peace that comes from sitting on a porch with a view that wraps around you.

I can’t account for the joy that beats like wild wings within my chest except that I recognize it as the Holy Spirits quickening because that’s how God is. He shows up.

He permeates the air with His presence especially when it seems all hope is lost forever. He says:

No, it’s not, because I am.

In troubled times we need to gather the ones we love close and get rid of everything else that weighs us down. We need to walk humbly in love and cradle carefully the gift we have from God, and never lose our sense of wonder at the world that was once perfect.

Be surprised each day at what God redeems out of the ashes. Never forget the moment you first believed. He is coming quickly, so my advice is be ready.

Raise your eyes to the Heavens and never lose hope. Remember that even thistles and artichokes yield spectacular blooms.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

A Monet Morning

“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” Romans 1:20

I awoke early one morning on my visit back home to California and the Spirit beckoned me to the Lake. All was quiet as I tiptoed through the wet grass and parked on the street. The fish were jumping and the sun was throwing her covers off on the other side of the world and beginning to color ours with the first promise of light.

The regular walkers were just beginning to come out as I made my stroll around the lake, this place where I grew up and spent so many family outings. I never fully appreciated it when I lived here.

Two ducks padded up, wondering if I had anything good to eat.

The whole experience was something like a prayer without words when the sun made her appearance like jewels strewn across the sky…….

It was one of those Holiest of moments when God touches down.

Heaven kissed earth. I kissed back……..

This guy got caught by the sprinklers………

Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. Job 12:7-10

For those who long for freedom

You feel grounded, rooted to this spot, and you feel like things can’t change soon enough. You feel discouragement nipping at your heels because you have the sense that by the time things do finally change it will be too late.

This is a prayer for those who are in the uncomfortable place of waiting:

For a change…..the crack of dawn in the darkness……for healing to come…..to get out from under that boss…..to not have to view the world from the window anymore. Maybe it’s the past that keeps pulling you back. Maybe it’s just one person.

You want to hit the open road and never look back because fighting the good fight is tiring. You don’t want to be the one left behind anymore, you want to be the one planning to fly off to fun without a care in the world. You want to get off the Merry-Go-Round and take a turn on the Ferris Wheel.

Maybe you’re in a care-taking role you never asked for, and you feel like you have been playing that role most of your life and you want another part in the play. Maybe it’s a parent who really hasn’t ever been there, and you wonder why in the world you feel you have to be there for them.

And even now, in their weakness, their neediness, their disease, their negative words still have the power to deliver a death sentence to your hopes and dreams, to rob you of every victory you ever almost enjoyed. But only if you let them.

Sometimes you wonder why God keeps them alive and you feel like it’ll only be after they’re gone that you will taste true freedom………part of that freedom will be the absence of the albatross of all that guilt hanging around your neck.

Stand tall, and know that God is fighting with you and for you today. Even now, it’s His freedom, His salvation that makes it possible to continue doing what you do. You have the living promise “that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Because of Him, hope has made a permanent home in your heart and right now, today you are a living testimony with a future filled with promise.

Hope flickers like a candle in her heart and this hope is what the negative voices have tried to stamp out again and again but the voices are becoming silent now because this is her time. The seed that hope planted in her heart has given birth to success, and no one and nothing can ever take that away, because now she knows she is worthy. Sometimes you must have the courage to step over the loss of that thing you never had in order to have the strength to move on.

Take heart, take hope today. He has already given you success. He is with you in the middle of wherever you are. It’s true freedom He gives and it belongs to you today!

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17

No road-kill on the golden streets of Heaven

It was laying there feet up by the fountain when I got home. E had called and said there was a dead pigeon in the garden and for some reason she couldn’t deal with it. This is the bravest woman I know. She wrapped up my foot when it was sliced all the way to the tendon and told me, “Oh, it’s not that bad.” She’d lived out in the patio room at 100 plus degrees so her Alzheimer’s stricken Mom could have her room. She’s also never met a vehicle she couldn’t operate no matter how big.

But from a young age, her Grandmother instilled in her a deep-seated reticence about touching birds: “They all have lice,” she remembers her saying.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized she must have meant a dove and not a pigeon; she gets them mixed up. She knows how I love doves, how I appreciate the backdrop of their cooing when I pray out in my shed. That’s why it made her sad.

I said, “I hope at least it was single…..not old enough to have a mate.” I have read they are one of the few animal species that mate for life; I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s a romantic notion anyway and one that makes me appreciate the fact that you hardly ever see one dove without another by its side.

“Use the shovel!” she said. I didn’t listen. It was surprisingly weightless as picked it up. I wrapped in lovingly in a paper towel, much like my own Grandmother did when my parakeet Peppy died on her watch. She saved it for us for when we got back from vacation; lovingly preserved in a strawberry crate coffin covered with a paper towel for its burial shroud.

I can’t imagine what my Mom thought about that………..

As I gathered the little form in my palms, I said a prayer of thanks to God for its short but meaningful sojourn on the earth; for the joy that it gave with its song in the morning, and at the peaceful close of day. And again I marveled that there will be no death at all in Heaven, not any. You won’t find any road-kill on the golden streets of Heaven.

As I said the prayer, I thought of how I have always loved the Native American’s deep-seated appreciation and gratitude for animal life, and the humility with which they took a life, knowing that the animal had made a sacrifice to sustain their own preservation. They never took more than they needed and nothing was ever wasted.

God created all life, and it’s through His grace that we all live and move and have our being. By His word the Heavens and Earth and all living things came into existence. Let Heaven and nature sing His praise:

He appointed the moon for seasons;
The sun knows its going down.
You make darkness, and it is night,
In which all the beasts of the forest creep about.
The young lions roar after their prey,
And seek their food from God.

Psalms 104:19-21

I leave you with this Lakota prayer I found today……it’s a good meditation for it shows us how small we really are in the realm of creation, but also, how very loved we are. How thought of by God himself. Not a sparrow (or dove) falls to the ground without Him knowing…….

Oh, Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life
to all the world, hear me.

I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.

Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.

Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you without shame.

– Chief Yellow Lark, Lakota, 1887

The Long Way Home

The day I left my hometown in 1992, there was disorder and chaos and a big moving van outside my apartment complex, and my boss pretending to organize it all. I was on the cusp of a grand adventure, moving away from the hometown and family that I loved; the place where I had always felt secure, yet at 30 years of age, I had never lived away and I felt it was a good opportunity to do something radically different.

I left behind a husband recently buried, and a lifetime of memories. Mostly all good.

It was a move to the high desert of Arizona, with the promise of pine trees and mountain tops and a bit of snow.

Two cats yowling in carriers across the desert in driving rain that came from nowhere, all these years later and that is one of the memories that stays.

That, and my Mom with tears flowing and a heart breaking for a girl that she could no longer keep safe. And a Dad trying not to cry but not succeeding. She carried out to me her most precious possession, the Bible we shared together. An old tattered copy of “The Way.” I still have it, all these years later; with both of our notes co-mingled on hope filled, love filled pages.

We built a dream home, E and I, because back then it was as inexpensive to build as to buy, so why not? A dear, sweet couple named Mr. and Mrs. Bott signed over the deed with a handshake and fifty bucks. A three-story house grew up on that lot. My room was beyond custom-made French doors on the very tip-top, and when it snowed it turned into a snow globe. If I opened my windows, I could almost reach out and touch the tops of the pine trees and in the dark early mornings an owl would hoot.

But there, even in that magical place of beauty, I never felt quite at home.

I discovered that you can’t rush healing by building a dream on top of sorrow, especially when you’re running away from the only One who can heal you.

Even so, God jogged along beside us. He touched us through some very special friends we met there, and a little brown Presbyterian church.

Then that dream died. None of our boss’s promises rang true and he stopped paying his business taxes and all of a sudden nobody was sure they had medical coverage anymore, and he started storing food and ammunition and got kind of crazy. That led to another move and a wonderful opportunity at a big company in New Mexico. It was a terrifying round of interviews, but we both landed jobs.

In Arizona, I was a small town girl in another small town, but Albuquerque was something completely different. I became swallowed up in a huge company and I floundered in a land that looked mostly like a brown paper sack. It’s only now, with some distance behind me, that I can see that it had its own brand of magic. My Mom came to visit and she was mesmorized by the clouds, said she’d never seen any quite like it.

We found a house in the exact neighborhood I said I wanted to live in. It was hilly and pretty and my boss lived right down the street. At night all the garage doors would open and swallow up the people. Nobody played outside, not in the front yards anyway.

Despite feeling lost in a giant corporation some good memories stand out from that time. Of bright-colored balloons against the sky, so many it was staggering, and my brother and sister-in-law who came for the Fiesta, all of us thinking that she was free of cancer then. I remember laughing together over icy cold Coronas under a tin roof at On the Border as the thunder rolled.

And God spoke quietly to me in the sun one day as I cracked the cover of Philip Yancey’s book The Jesus I Never Knew. That’s when I started my journey back home, back to Him.

Arizona beckoned once again with a job transfer, and another move back to a place that I considered closer to home…….it was back across the desert, with the same two cats, older now. And we landed squarely in the arms of Grace when we found a church we could truly call home.

It was peace, and grace, and prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit and traveling that full circle that made me realize that the only one I could truly trust to bring me home to healing was God, and He never left.

And of all those beautiful places, it’s this humble, manufactured home in a senior park, the one that surprises people when they walk in because it looks nothing like that preconceived idea………is the one that truly makes me cry at the thought of leaving it. This place where I pray, where I pour out my heart and He listens.

This place where a blog was born, and two cats lay buried and two more are now getting to be old men. Where the clouds roll in on summer afternoons and the thunder rumbles. Where the doves coo and the quails cry. Where we dealt with E’s Mom and the Alzheimer’s and her Dad’s death, this place is where we most feel like home because it’s where the river of His grace has carried us.

Each day, I wake up to a miracle because now I can finally appreciate the beauty of the journey.

And I pray for the grace to be ready for the next move, for there is a stirring within me to go back to the place where I began; to end my journey there. I know it’s faith that leads us all home, and I am seeking God’s face for whatever lies ahead. I find myself in a peculiar place in this journey, that of being afraid to leave and afraid of not leaving soon enough.

But maybe that’s not a bad thing, for if I didn’t have the fear, I wouldn’t need the faith.

Please join me over at the Atlas Girl Blog Tour to help celebrate Emily Wierenga’s book launch of Atlas Girl today. It’s a must read!

When it’s easier to label someone than help

Hey you, man on the side of the freeway with a sign.

What are you?

A fake, a phoney?

Are you playing us for a fool or are you really homeless?

Really poor?

Really a disabled veteran?

I want you to know, you haunt me.

Driving by later at night, I see you are no longer at your usual post by the freeway exit and neither is your friend.

The one whose turn it is to hold the sign while you wait in the shade.

I wonder, where do you sleep?

Where are you right this minute?

And is it my job to judge whether you are really what you say you are?

You shame me.

You teach me how far I still have to go in my faith journey.

I see you everywhere, and everywhere I wonder.

What…..who…..how you are and how you ended up there.

I just want you to know……

You haunt me.

And I am thinking that Jesus probably haunted a few people too.

Matthew 25:35-40

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’

“Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’ Matthew 25:35-40

photo credit: creative commons via flickr Ed Yourdon

Evening Falls……

I sit, long after I should. Everything is set aright, lamps off, doors locked, and I can feel the morning pressing in, even though it’s still across the world. It is creeping up, as it is past nine. The alarm will go off at 4….just 7 little hours away.

Still, something keeps me up. Maybe its the way the party lights shimmer against the window, their color the only thing alive here in the quiet night. They seem to whisper a promise of parties come and parties gone and parties yet to be. Pinterest calls me but I tagged teamed that already, and Facebook as well. The cats are even settled in their nightly places, their eyes know things that daylight doesn’t quite understand.

Times like these make me savor the last shreds of what’s left of the day. I contemplate what it means to be here now, alive, breathing listening for every night noise. It’s an amazing thing to know God’s up there seeing everything at once. Seeing the orphan in Haiti, the tears of a mother in Africa who can’t feed her child, the praying minister deep in the silent halls of a church in China, and the over-indulged and the overworked and starving here too.

I fight sleep and I don’t know why. I guess because I am trying to hear the world like God does. I hear….yes, but only when it’s quiet.

Lori's Prayer Closet

"And when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done is secret, will reward you……"Matthew 6:6