Along came a spider

I was driving home a couple of weeks ago when it finally happened. The thing I always dreaded. The “what would I do if this happened scenario.” I was talking to my Dad on the commute home when I noticed something in my peripheral vision……a movement. Say it isn’t so. But there it was, skittering across the dash like it owned the place. A spider. Everyone who knows me knows how I feel about them.

I know they are God’s creatures. I know they are good to have around…..as long as they remember their place…..outside. I know they eat flies and other pests, and that their webs are works of art, especially when hit with morning dew. I really can see the beauty in that. But where there’s a web there’s an occupant. There it is, smack dab in the middle of that glorious creation…….along with all eight creepy legs that I imagine crawling across my face in the middle of the night.

That actually happened to me once and I never forgot it.

Surprisingly, Charlotte’s Web was my favorite book growing up, but no matter how my Dad tried to tell me to “let Charlotte live”  it didn’t matter. It only pulled on my heartstrings for a second…..right before I switched on the vacuum cleaner and sucked Charlotte right into her new forever home.

There it was, dangerously close, on my side of the dash. I held my breath and leaned over as far as I could toward the passenger side. Then it leisurely went across to the other side….I released my breath. It was tortuous. I thought it would help if I stayed on the phone and so I did, never letting the panic hit my voice. I was extremely proud of myself for exercising such supreme discipline and control.

That is, until it started to crawl, in that fast creepy way they have, right over to where I was sitting. Trapped. My hands gripped the wheel and did the only thing I could do.

I sped up.

Then the worst happened, it disappeared! I lost track of the sucker. Any minute I expected it to float down right in front of my face. The not knowing was worse than actually seeing it.

It appeared again by my left shoulder. That’s when all my self control and discipline went out the window. By the time I approached the Wal-Mart off-ramp I was approaching 80 MPH. I was in complete control of course, my hands never left the wheel except for once.

I barrelled around the corner and screeched to a stop in the garden center parking lot. By that time it had managed to make it all the way to the backseat floorboards. I should have let it go but I didn’t. I got a towel from the trunk and smashed it good.

I feel bad for killing one of God’s creatures….

If it just hadn’t been in my car.

Later I told my Dad about it. After the laughter subsided he told me he was impressed by my tremendous display of self discipline.

Rest……

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28
“My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26 

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe. I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.” Psalm 61:1

“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” Psalm 62:1-2

 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:28- 31

I am having a bit of rest today on this little bench…….come and join me. If you don’t see me, that means I am doing some blog-hopping today. Doing a little visiting, neighbor to neighbor, blog to blog.

Get the coffee ready, I like it strong!

The Song around the throne

Don’t you wonder where it comes from? That hymn that you almost forgot? It shows up when you are tired, or anxious, or fearful. Or maybe it’s a verse that comes just when you need it. They float in and out. Sometimes they are like a little whisper deep in your soul.

That’s the Holy Spirit. He can’t keep from singing….and in the quiet places in my soul, I join in. I may be anxious, or scared, or worried. But when I hear His song, my own spirit sings along. The arrow of truth sinks deep. It’s His way of reminding me.

Jesus is all I need. Jesus is all I need. That’s the one I kept hearing this morning. Yes, I know He is. My mind and all my past experiences and logic tell me so and I know it to be true. He is more than enough. It’s my heart that falters, slow to get the message.

I was worried about my Mom yesterday. They had to give her a new medication because her heart was beating too fast. The Doctor mentioned stroke. I realized again that someday, sooner than later, I will have to live without her, and I don’t want to.

Jesus is enough, yes. But I want her here too. I can’t think that she won’t be here as long as I will.

I was so distracted and worried that it took someone with Alzheimer’s in the passenger seat to tell me that I had the green arrow….that was right after I heard the loud honking behind me.

Then I got irritated at them because they were impatient and I honked back.

As my cousin would say, Onward Christian Soldiers.

Sometimes it does feel like a war.

Inside me He is singing and I am doing my best to sing along. There is an endless song around the throne of God that I like to imagine. And it never stops.

That’s the one the Holy Spirit sings….and its the one we will all sing one day, by and by.

When the Desert Loves

As a pilot calls on winds and a storm-tossed mariner looks
homeward, so the times call on you to win your way to God. As
God’s athlete, be sober; the stake is immortality and eternal
life. St. Ignatius the God-bearer
I have never read much of the desert fathers (and mothers) but I understand the appeal the desert held for them. The desert has a way of calling to you after awhile. I never would have believed this, having been raised with weekends on the Pacific coast and the majestic Sierra Nevada mountain range. These call too, very loudly……..it is easy to see God there because the grandeur of that beauty speaks with a megaphone.
The desert is big sky………and filled with remote and lonely places that only the cry of the coyotes fill.
And the desert is fierce and moody and relentless. At once brutal, so hot you can feel it in your eyeballs, and powerful and violent as the thunder rolls, the lightening flashes against the backdrop of eerie sky sending both human and animal alike running for cover as the hardened ground fails to contain the water that pours out of the sky in sheets. The wind blows and the dust swallows everything in its path. I challenge anyone to doubt God in a desert thunderstorm.
You feel the fierceness of the relentless heat like the Old Testament’s descriptions of God’s wrath in the summer time. You think you will never get through its oppressive agony. It is merciless, the way it beats down on you, month after month.Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God……. Then just when you think you can’t stand one more minute…….that He may exalt you at the proper time…..1 Peter 5:6
And then…….miraculously.
It cools. You feel the release of its grip like the whisper of God’s mercy. You walk outside and you realize something monumental has happened, something wondrous. It is the desert waking up…..The hope of that awakening is something a non-desert dweller could never understand.
We rejoice because we have made it through to the other side. It’s a bit like rebirth……Doors and windows are once again thrown open, and new life begins once more.
Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. Song of Solomon 2:12 
I open the screen door for the first time today….Hallelujah!

When resentments cloud our prayers

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth cannot sustain itself forever, ultimately both parties end up blind and toothless.” Gandhi

Yesterday morning prayer time was wonderful……I went outside and instead of being greeted with stifling heat I was met with a blessedly cool 75 degrees, something that is a distant memory between the months of May through early September here. And something else I have longed for, prayers accompanied by a little sprinkling of raindrops on the roof.

Afterwards, I went to look for my patriotic flag to hang for September 11 and remembered that it was a bit weather worn and I had thrown it out. I decided I needed to fly a real flag, so off I went to Walmart at 6:30 in the morning. Not many people there then. I drove home with my precious commodity and proudly hung it out…..red white and blue……glory against the backdrop of Arizona sky.

Today’s prayer didn’t go quite so well. It was clouded by a resentful thought that I could not dislodge. It came about halfway through prayer and stuck there…..

Instead of praying about it, as I should have done, I decided to keep it for awhile…..mull it over. It started me asking questions. Those irritating whys…..Forgiveness is good and right and Godly……..yet so difficult when you have to live it out day in and day out.

How do you forgive someone when they have hurt someone you love?

When you are the caretaker for someone who has never cared for you, never treated you well, wounded you emotionally?

When you don’t have to live with them it’s easy. Out of sight, out of mind. But what if they are never out of sight? What then? It’s like reopening old wounds every day.

Living out the Christian faith is easy when it’s never tested. Our faith doesn’t grow if it’s not challenged. That’s when we grow closer to Him. When we’re tested. The challenge is proof that He loves us.

It’s our love for God that motivates us to leave behind those things in us that are not Godly. Those things in me He wants me to change. The Holy Spirit does not deserve to live in a body and mind steeped in resentment….fear….anger. It helps to remember the sacrifice.

The terrible price that was paid for us. The ultimate price.  “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” 1 Corinthians 6: 19, 20

As I sat in a beautiful church service yesterday, remembering the sacrifice of all those people running into those burning buildings, and saw all the names of those who died streaming down the wall…….my eyes streamed too. Four candles lit, one for each plane down.

They paid with their lives for the evil someone else did. He paid with His life, for what He didn’t do.

“For I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Could it be that sometimes God’s blessing comes from those who have been our biggest challenge in life? Could it be that He is heaping treasure in Heaven for us through this very person, these very circumstances that are the source of so much pain?

Is the very act of forgiveness the thing that will bring about the salvation for us all?

This one thing I know to be true…….God is building something eternal in us right here and now. It is something so big and so great we can scarcely imagine it. Everything we do with His help and by His power changes us forever.

Thankfulness wells up again, and again as I remember this…….

Remembering

September 11, 2001 was my first what I call, “Where were you moment” I thought it fitting to quote from a piece of Gordon MacDonald’s journal. He was a Pastor who volunteered as a chaplain for the Salvation Army as soon as the events unfolded that day. Here is what he wrote…..
“And more than once I asked myself–as everyone asks–is God here? And I decided that He is closer to this place than any other place I’ve ever visited. The strange irony is that, amidst this absolute catastrophe of unspeakable proportions, there is a beauty in the way human beings are acting that defies the imagination. Everyone–underscore, everyone–is every else’s brother or sister. There are no strangers among the thousands at the work site. Everyone talks; everyone cooperates; everyone does the next thing that has to be done. No job is too small, too humble, or, on the other hands, too large. Tears ran freely, affection was exchanged openly, exhaustion was defied. We all stopped caring about ourselves. The words “it’s not about me” were never more true.”
No church service, no sanctuary, no religiously inspiring service has spoken so deeply into my soul and witnessed to the presence of God as those hours last night at the crash site.
In all my years of Christian ministry, I never felt more alive that I felt last night. The only other time I can remember a similar feeling was the week that Gail and I (his wife) worked on a Habitat for Humanity project in Hungary. As much as I love preaching the Bible and all the other things that I have been privileged to do over the years, being on that street, giving cold water to workmen, praying and weeping with them, listening to their stories was the closest I have ever felt to God. Even though it sounds melodramatic; I kept finding myself saying, “This is the place where Jesus most wants to be.”
George MacDonald, volunteer Chaplain for the Salvation Army on 9/11/2001

A morning for tea……

You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. C.S. Lewis
I knew that if I “google searched” C.S. Lewis quotes that something having to do with tea would pop up…..lo and behold it did! This photo was taken by Elaine when she surprised me the other day by taking me to Ms. Thomas Tea House. It’s me doing my best to be ladylike without spilling tea all over. I only spilled a little.
It really was a sweet thing for her to do. She knows I like to get in touch with my English heritage once in a while….. My Dad’s side hails from Lincolnshire, near the Sherwood Forest in Nottingham. I love the little tea cups, the lace on the table, the little fancy sandwiches. However, I can be dignified and “pinkies up” only so long. I have a track record for dropping things and clanging the lid too loud, and laughing when I am not supposed to.
I have a feeling if I ever met the Royal Highness herself, something would set me off……it would probably be me tripping over the red carpet. I can see it now, me coming down with a hopeless case of the giggles in the assembly line, right before I was supposed to curtsy and shake her white gloved hand.
If you make the photo bigger you will notice that though my pinkie is up, it is a bit bent……that just about sums it up for me. A bit of serious and a bit of silly…..well, maybe a lot silly.
I have vague memories of singing a solo in first or second grade with Carlyn Willie. Now, she was a lot serious and never silly. I got a terrible case of the giggles. I think she thought she was trying out for the opera. It was bad, and to top it off, we were singing Silent Night. My Mom was there, and she wasn’t too happy.
Just goes to show, you shouldn’t ask a kid to do such solemn things.
If sidelong looks and elbow jabs could have killed, I never would have made it out alive that day…..
To celebrate……We had a bit of rain in the desert last night and when I walked out to get in the car it was a glorious 75 degrees! That was enough to put me in a good mood for the rest of the day….
God is good, cooler temperatures are coming….I have faith!

Book of Kindness

It’s time for counting kindness……

An interesting thing happened when I started to count the gifts of gratitude one by one……that counting the good things became even more a part of who I am.
They slipped in quietly, but they surprised me by their insistence, even when I was worried, or stressed, or angry, or scared…..they came alongside and made their presence known, and didn’t back down.
And now I find myself wanting to count other things. That is what started my book of kindnesses…..
It is for keeping track of the things my friends and family have done for me or others……all those little things it’s so easy to lose track of. It’s so important to know that there is still much kindness left in the world.
My Mom in her childhood watches…..I think she likes the idea

And hopefully, this counting will inspire me to practice kindness on myself and others, because I know there is much room for me to grow. These I don’t count, for God Himself keeps track of each one done

In Jesus name…….“And (A)whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these [a]little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.” Matthew 10:42
First entry: Diane (who bought me this little book) goes with my Mom to the Doctor during a scary checkup
Second entry: Just about every time Elaine makes an ice-cream cone for our household, she makes three extra and takes them next door to Bob, Eileen and Estelle
Third entry: Bob and Eileen take Elaine to get her car from the shop
I often like to imagine all the many things that Jesus must have done that we have never heard about…..
“And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.” John 21:25
I have a feeling they ended up in the Father’s own book of kindness

When God Speaks

I was going to write about something entirely different today, but then I read Duane Scott’s post over at Michelle’s place. I remembered something my Dad told me when I was back home this last time……As I read about what Duane so rightly calls, the hard hallelujah, 24 years fell away and I thought about my own period of deep grief and all the events that threatened to swallow my family whole.
Dad told me about the night that God spoke…….It was a Tuesday evening and he was getting ready for a prayer meeting he usually attended. Something kept holding him back. He chalked it up as laziness and continued getting ready. But there was a weight, a heaviness that seemed to be holding him back.
He went but didn’t participate in the prayer……He sat quietly in the back, trying to pray, but feeling like he wasn’t supposed to be there.
Oppressed by a darkness he couldn’t explain.
He says it was as if a strong undertow was pulling him back home. The voice, the Holy Spirit within him was growing louder and more insistent as the night wore on. “Go home and go quickly.”
It wasn’t audible, it didn’t have to be.
Right after he got home the phone rang. It was me calling from Mexico and to this day I don’t remember either calling, or the conversation. What my Dad did understand was that the man I had just married three days before had died in an accident and I was left alone…..in a country not my own.
On what was supposed to be my honeymoon…….
If my Dad had not heeded God’s voice, my Mom would have had to take that call alone. I don’t think she could have handled it.
So while the glow of the wedding was still bright and fresh, the bouquet still in bloom….while relatives had barely had time to get home, they had to come back for a memorial.
And I had to figure out what to do with a future I had all planned out.
The grief was so deep I thought I would never get out. It affected us all. God watched me mess up, veer wildly off the path at times. He watched me deal with the grief all wrong, and that must have been painful for Him to watch…..But in all that time, He never left me.
There are no words for sadness that goes so deep. I remember we all said, “How can the birds still be singing?” In all of our hard hallelujahs no words of comfort ever sound right. But now that I am so far on the other side of that grief, I can comfort others in a way someone else can’t and I know it.
But how to comfort when there are no words? The best thing can be just your presence, a hug….shared tears. A listening ear……..Stopping by after everyone else goes away.
You might ask the question, “Well, if God spoke once, why didn’t He speak another warning? Why didn’t He intervene in the big thing that happened…..Why didn’t He prevent it?”
There is an answer that comforts me, and I know it to be true. I know my God. There is a reason He didn’t intervene, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe it was because He was saving me or someone else from an even greater grief further down the road. That is what I choose to believe….it’s how I find comfort.
I didn’t always have peace about it, but I do now. All these years later, the “why” question matters less and less. Heaven is not nearly as far as we think. The joy that springs up in the heart even in the midst of unbearable sorrow is proof. For we know where they are…….

Though He didn’t keep the awful event from happening, I know He loves me more than anything, and I know He was with me every step of the way.

The death of a child is much harder for me to understand. I can’t imagine that kind of grief.

All I know is that He loves us so very much, even more than we can imagine, and He loves our loved one even more than we do.

Whoever reads this, please whisper a prayer for Duane, the grieving parents of his nephew and all the family. Thank you Duane, for such a beautiful and real post today and thank you Michelle for sharing it.

Prayer for Texas

A resident evacuates his home
 
 

These pictures tell the story…….1000 homes burned and thousands having to evacuate due to wildfires that are out of control. Please pray for everyone involved and for those fighting these fires. I pray for a day with little or no wind……These people have had no rain for months and conditions are so dry…..

A patio table and chair is all that is left

Father, I just pray that there will be no more deaths and that You calm the winds and comfort those who have lost their homes. Thank you for those who got out with their lives intact. I pray that they may be restored in body and spirit.

A cat rescued

May Your Holy Spirit grant them strength and help during this difficult time……………

Elaine just got off the phone with her cousin who lives in La Grange, Texas and they are ready to leave on a moments notice. There are fires surrounding them on all sides. Her two pet carriers are already by the front door, one for her cat and one for her Mom’s.  Her husband found it humorous that  she grabbed a stuffed gorilla she had given her Dad that he had kept for years, and also the military flag she recieved after his memorial service.

It’s funny, the things we reach for, what we value when all is threatened. It’s not the china or the figurines, but the things that are attached to the ones we love, the memories and pictures.

Despite it all, Sandra is still in good spirits and hoping for the best. Her Mom was at the beauty shop getting her hair and nails done. Sandra says: “I guess she wants to look good in case they have to evacuate!”

Thank you my blogging buddies, in advance for your prayers!

all photos courtesy of the LA times