Riptide of love

God caught me by surprise me this morning.

That’s how the Holy Spirit works, like the wind, you never know when He might come (it’s part of the mystery)

His Spirit washed over me like a wave. It was unexpected and I almost couldn’t contain it.

Because how can you contain a God that even stones will cry out to?

How can I be anything less than an instrument of His praise from my first breath to my last?

Sometimes He gives me a glimpse…..just one is all it takes and I fall in love. All over again. He knows when I need assuring.

Just the fact that He does reveal Himself to me stuns me with silence but the next moment I want to pull my car over and jump up and down on the side of the road.

Our God is a shockandawe kind of God, powerful enough to calm the sea and taunt death.

He breaths fire from his nostrils and carries lambs on His shoulders and I can scarcely imagine the depths of His love and mercy.

He calms the sea and walks through walls like some kind of Superhero God.

He tames lions and turns people into pillars of salt, stops them in their tracks.

Yet He grips me in His gentle Hand like King Kong might hold a butterfly.

He allows me to feel the glow of His Holy fire from a distance because He knows too close would burn me like the sun.

I am blown away by the fact that He loves me and the timing He uses to let me know.

I was riding a wave, caught in the riptide of His love, I was surfing on a wave of fire.

Consuming fire and gentle whisper hung on a cross.

Satan thought He won that day, He was doing a victory dance over that one.

But he made a huge mistake by underestimating the power of love,

left out of the loop of God’s plan by his own failure to imagine what God might do to save us.

He didn’t think God would go through with it.

But He did.

Oh happy day.

Painting by Duane Scott

Here and now

Forgive me, Lord

This is supposed to be our time, but so far the world looms large. I am holding stray thoughts at bay, they crash through like static on the radio. I have scarcely given you a thought. My mind is like a freight train barreling down the tracks at full throttle. I chase every stray thought and follow each one down every possible scenario.

But now, none of that matters. Only your prescence matters. Here and now.

Sometimes the best way to pray is to honor you with my silence so here it is Lord. Fill my empty with You. Right now only one thought breaks through…….. There is none like You.

Sometimes my worship feels like lip syncing for You, Lord. How can I dare to sing about giving my all to you when in fact I am only giving you part,

some. You deserve more than my leftovers.

Thank you Lord, for giving me what I don’t deserve.

Pure grace.

Wish you were here……God

The God of the Universe thinks about you. Not just once, not just every now and then, but several times a day. Let that thought stop you in your tracks today. Let it stun you. Let it fill you with wonder.

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. Psalm 139:1-4

And if he could send a postcard from Heaven, it would have your name and below that, “Wish you were here” or one I like even better…..”Can’t wait to see you ____” Fill in your own name there.

Just imagine how excited He must feel when He knows another of His children will get to see everything He has prepared……….It’s like that feeling when you buy someone you care about the perfect gift and you absolutely can’t wait until they open it.

God is ready. But He can’t show you quite yet He’s still preparing it, and you.

When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. Jesus

Consider that today can be the first gift of your new life, open it. And don’t forget to thank Him, even if it’s only a pair of socks, cause socks from God are still a pretty neat gift, especially when you think that everyday from now on it just gets closer to the really Big Gift.

You know the one. Remember Christmas? You had all those little gifts, practical things like pajamas and sweaters? All along you had your eye on that BIG gift in the corner. And really, your parents did too.

They were saving the best for last.

So is He.

Calling a Truce

I tugged at my hair and frowned in the mirror. Then I remembered I couldn’t frown because that’s bad for the furrow between my eyes. I lift my eyebrows as if to iron it out. I can’t look too close at the things that are changing more with each passing year.

I apply makeup furiously and with a vendetta against the things I am trying to cover up. I do my usual squint in the mirror, my usual way of addressing mirrors ever since I was in fifth grade when my Mom let me start using pancake makeup to cover up my early acne.

In many ways, I am still the girl behind the curtain of hair on my first visit to the dermatologist office, all these years later. I look for the seat against the window, not facing it. Those visits lasted years and took me to some dark places.

I thought I could make myself disappear if I lost enough weight.

When I finally emerged at 25, by God’s grace and healing and my parent’s prayers, I entered into a foreign and wonderful place I had never been before. It was my own personal Woodstock. I waded in at first, then I plunged in with both feet. I exulted, I danced, I splashed, I reveled in my new-found joy and freedom.

I got my hair cut and looked out at a new and wonderful world. I ran my fingers over my face and down my neck where there were no more lumps. Praise God. For the first time in my life I felt beautiful.

It was a pretty good run from then on. Until lately that is.

At 50 I was all confident and unafraid, ready to take on the next phase of life. At 53 I am entering into a peculiar stage. It’s not so much fun anymore. Gravity and years are tugging at me. Simple tasks result in stupid injuries.

But from today on, I am calling a truce with myself and my body. I will forgive it for aging. I am going to fall in love all over again. With myself. Cause God said I could.

This….day….I….will….remember.

Each time I get angry at the extra pounds pressing at my clothes, I will remember this post. I will not think of it as my body betraying me, but reminding me that I have to work a little bit harder. When I look at my upper arms I won’t pinch angrily at the extra flesh, remembering how firm and muscular my arms used to be.

And when I look at the wrinkles on my skin, which to me are looking more like trenches, I will try not to dream of winning a trip to the plastic surgeon or running to get laser treatments. I will not hate my extra sun spots and think of them as defects but friendly freckles, and I will let my arms go free from sleeves and I will wear shorts and enjoy it.

I will love my legs, knowing that underneath they are the same legs as when I could point a toe and see muscles pop like a ballet dancer. I can still use them to walk fast and even run when my back doesn’t give out.

I will not dread the swimsuit season. I will not allow it to give myself permission to hate my body or berate myself for how lazy I have gotten over the winter, I will use it as extra motivation to improve and make better food choices.

I will remember my re-birth, both of them. And live the truth that God has called me wonderfully made, and good, and yes, beautiful. And when I love myself, I am not only praising what He made, I am praising Him too.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:14

I will from this time forward, look to my beautiful older sisters who dress young and act young. I will see their radiant faces in my mind when I am tempted to pick up the barbed chains of self-flagellation.

And last but not least I will let my inner beauty shine so bright it’s the first thing people notice about me.

And starting today, I will hug myself in the mirror instead of frowning or squinting.

Because I love the me God created.

When God stops teaching you, you better worry

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–Ephesians 2:8

This is a repost from February of 2012 but the lesson hasn’t changed. The man I spoke of here is now with Jesus, he passed from death to life on Easter weekend of this year and no telling just how many he talked to are there in Heaven with him now too……

Driving home from work last night I breathed a prayer…….”thank you Lord for getting me through the day.” And then another thought, right on the heels of that. Is getting through enough? Is it not diminishing the capacity of wonder in a day to pray that kind of prayer? I do understand it……I fully understand that sometimes it is a real accomplishment to do just that, but too often I don’t set my sights high enough. I catch myself settling for less, when God wants to give me more.

I had to apologize. Then I started to count the beauty moments, the grace moments in the day. I remembered a conversation I had with a brother believer, and in those moments that we sat and shared at the cafe, a window of Heaven was opened. He reminded me that everything we do, everywhere we are can be a ministry. A moment of opportunity. You see, each month he flies to Houston for his cancer treatments, and though he wouldn’t have chosen his present circumstances, he shared how so many times God has placed someone in the seat beside him that needed to hear about what God is doing in his life.

Eternity moments. Reflected in each of our days, each one precious, a gift.

How can I pray to just get through the day when I know that almost certainly, the sky wasn’t just this color yesterday? How can I pray to just get through the day when there is someone waiting to hear what God is doing in my life, what He could do in theirs?

Every conversation has the possibility in it of changing someone’s life, someone’s eternity. Of opening a window of Heaven and letting the light spill out. I do believe that when you are suffering, getting through the day in one piece is quite an accomplishment, but that wasn’t the case with me yesterday.

Thank you God, for reminding me of this. For loving me enough to teach me yet another lesson. Thank you for the grace that I walk in each and every day.

God said it, I believe it.

In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. Acts 2:17

Within the last several years there have been multiple books about people who claim to have died and gone to Heaven and come back. Here are just a few:

90 Minutes in Heaven

Heaven is for Real

Proof of Heaven

To Heaven and Back

The last three I read this year, the first shortly after it came out, around 10 years ago. Each account was riveting and they all have a few things in common. They all hesitated before coming forward to tell their story, some of them waited several years. They all struggled to explain the beauty and wonder they saw and felt, and they all expressed deep sadness at having to leave.

They all talked about the music and never found words to describe how it sounded, but they also never forgot how it sounded, and they all talked about colors they had never seen before.

And the main thing they all felt was the most profound sense of Love permeating everything.

There are several cases in Scripture where people were caught up to Heaven and told about it. The whole book of Revelation is John’s account of what He saw there in His vision, and I gotta say, it comes pretty close to what some of these people describe.

I have never found any of these accounts hard to believe. It is easy for me to believe that there is a better more permanent place than this, as good and wonderful and beautiful as it is here.

But here is the main reason I believe in life after life.

God said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me.

When I had to identify my husband’s body in Mexico after he died, I will never forget how hollow he felt as I layed my head on his chest. He weighed over 200 pounds and yet he felt empty. His essence, his spirit, the person that I knew and loved was no longer there.

And I know where he was.

This week once again we get to celebrate that Jesus has thrown open the gates of Heaven for all of us. And once again, I am rejoicing with all the host of Heaven.

But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Acts 2:24

Thanks be to God for His upspeakable gift!

When the thing you dream of is happening

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

The trip is happening today, the one she dreamed of when she was overwhelmed, buried and burdened with care-giving. At one point, she gave up on all of it. Of ever having any vacation again. But now her Mom is settled and in a safe place. Yet tattered remnants of guilt remain. When you have been a caregiver for so long, guilt has a way of becoming a constant companion. It permeates your life and settles around you like smoke at a campfire.

I really think certain types of caregiving almost become a variation of the Stockholm syndrome, where hostages express empathy and sympathy and even have positive feelings for their captors. Especially when you are dealing with cases involving Dementia and Alzheimer’s. Of course, the one you are caring for is not a captor but usually someone you love or at the least someone you feel duty bound to care for. Because you want to. Because it’s the right thing.

Yet sometimes, when you are finally free, you don’t want to allow yourself that freedom. That’s an old trick of Satan, and personally, I don’t want to give him any satisfaction whatsoever. So we are taking this time off and accepting it as the gift from God that it is, with joy and anticipation.

Today, Elaine and I fly to Seattle and plan to eat seafood, see our dear friend and gaze in wonder at the ocean once more. And we will thank God for getting us through everything that went before. If you want a taste of it, just click on the sidebar under the Alzheimer’s category. It is with gratitude in our hearts that we will take this trip and savor every minute of it.

Hopefully, I will get a post in over the next week, but if I don’t you will know why.

For now, I am retreating for a few minutes of prayer as light starts to fill the sky and a day of promise begins. And we have a plane to catch.

The Sacredness of Sunday mornings

I pulled my sweats on and went out in the dark and it was cold so I needed an extra layer. I went back inside and got my no fail LL Bean terry cloth robe and carried my steaming cup out to the shop, the candle in my little lantern already flickering a soft glow.

A bird was singing its heart out and against the backdrop of that song, a dove cooed an accompaniment from a neighboring rooftop.

There is something sacred about this……reflecting on the week. Thanking God for how He got me through, how He got us through. I think of God pausing after the sixth day, looking out over creation, a Holy pause and here in the dark, I feel an echo of that same pause.

It’s good and right to do this.

Sometimes, activity has to stop in order for the appreciation to be fully felt, and standing on the other side of the events lets them breathe freely and take on new life.

This morning, I let it all wash over me. The events of the trip back home, getting my brother in and out of the hospital, the car almost conking out and Dad, a nervous wreck in the driver’s seat but holding it together and getting them back home. Me getting lost and nice people with directions. Mom and I sweeping my brother’s porch together.

Watching my Mom place her hands on Lauryn’s head giving her a blessing before school from my place in the driver’s seat; seeing her mouth the words I knew she was saying…….”The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and give you peace.” I pray that is one memory of her Grandma that Lauryn will always carry with her.

And even after a week, I still hear the praise song Mom played from her old boombox in the corner of the kitchen.

My life is in You Lord, my strength is in You Lord, my hope is in You Lord, in You, in You………

Yes indeed. It is. And thank you also, Lord for the little light that dawned while I was training yesterday at work. I really needed that.

When it just flows

Sometimes you hit a sweet spot with blogging, or any kind of writing for that matter. You stop wrestling and trying to figure out what you should write, or what people want to hear, or what you want to hear from yourself. It doesn’t always happen this way, but when it does?

It becomes not something you do, but something you release as a free expression of the worship that naturally flows out of your heart and soul. It’s gratitude and nothing more…..

Just now, I was heading back up the stairs here at work. I had a spring in my step because I am on break and I knew I had an hour or so to do this post. I simply couldn’t wait, not because I have anything of much importance or earth shattering to say, be because I serve a very good God and I am so glad He is walking with me on this earth, because the more I see in the news?

The more hopeless it seems to get. The bleaker the outlook, the more I cling to my God and the more the gratitude spills out. And the more I want to share that with everyone else.

As I spent time with my family just this past week, I learned to cherish them all over again.

When I was unpacking my suitcase last night, I came across the hand drawn map my Dad made me, the directions to the hospital. I couldn’t bear to throw it away. I tucked it into my keepsake box, which is fairly bursting at the seams with each passing year.

Looking at that map, I wondered how in the world I have been so blessed. I have had people drawing maps for me my whole life. At every turn.

And when I took that wrong turn on the freeway just recently? I got a call from Elaine who was watching me via the “Find friends” app on my iPhone. She called to tell me how to get back on but I had already stopped and asked directions.

Friends and family that have your back. When it all comes down to it, that is what matters most. In the hospital room beside my brother there was a man who had no visitors. He was awaiting his heart surgery and he had no company.

He has no hope of any face to greet him when he comes out. No hand to grasp except the medical staff. No loving eyes that meet his, and no one to wipe his brow with a cool cloth. My brother felt so bad he said he might even go visit him afterwards.

Yes, I am extremely grateful these days. For people who love me, and for a loving God who gave me the best road map and the only one I will ever need.

His word and His love.

The Snow Day

Tuesday night my little corner of the desert took a cue from the rest of the country and got uncharacteristically cold and gray. When dawn drew aside her curtain we were treated to a view that was almost Holy.

Snow had dusted the top of the Superstition Mountains…..and all day long my camera beckoned from its place on the shelf.

I needed to get closer to that view…..closer to God. I drove through rain-soaked drizzle and felt the snap in the air as I waited for the heater to kick in.

My spirit was bogged down with an anchor that held my heart fast, kept it from sailing free.

And in this life isn’t there almost always a pain, a heartache, an issue, “a thing” to weigh down our hearts? But I have learned one very important bit of wisdom in my time on this earth.

Really, you could say that it is one of the most important lessons to learn.

God is always there too, and He’s always bigger than the thing, whatever that thing is.

Sometimes, we just need to know that He remembers us down here; that’s how I found myself praying that day, as I drove.

Remember me Lord…….remember me as You remembered Noah, Moses and Abraham.

See this woman down here; this woman driving around getting lost looking for the perfect view of the mountain, the perfect view of You. One who worries about her family. Remember me as my pain blooms to life once again by something I see that reminds me of what used to be.

And then somehow, a miracle does happen because it’s not only God remembering me, but me remembering God, and all the big things He’s brought us through before and I know He will again.

On days when we’d rather throw the covers over our head, what we need to do is swing our feet over the side of the bed and ask God what kind of miracle you and He are going to pull off together. It’s what I had to do this morning……

I remember You, God. And today I will set my sights on Heaven.

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. Colossians 3:1-4

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

Gratitude