When everything is hanging by a thread

When your Dad calls and says, “Can you pray for me? I am having pain in my knee and back, and my good eye is giving me problems……just pray, please.”

Be still……

When there is yet another shake up at work and you wonder if this is the time……time to move back home.

Be still and know…..

When people have haven’t been a part of chaos for two years decide they want to make trouble?

Be still know and know that I am God….

When sore throats just don’t go away and you have a fever blister the size of Texas? (Poor Elaine)

Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations…..

When a troubled son won’t talk…..

Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations…..I will be exalted in the earth.

And this, always this:

God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.

All selections from Psalm 46

Linking up with Sandra for Still Saturday

Fearfully and wonderfully made

As I sit in prayer I listen to birds sing the day in and not for the first time I think, they have it right. I pour my coffee and I wonder how many in the world are doing the same thing right now, but they never taste it. They sip but don’t savor and then on to the next thing.

I suppose I am one of the lucky ones. When you have lost suddenly in your life it tends to change your perspective. You know just how fast it can all be gone so you grab each day with both hands, you grab grace because you know it’s because of grace we’re all here at all.

And you also learn how to see and embrace the wonder in each new day. The fact that God is in it is all the reason you need. Just take one aspect of your body, or one aspect of creation. Just think what a symphony of coordination has to happen between your brain and your legs to get up and cross the room. Or for your eye to work properly. How can this not be enough to agree along with the Psalmist that we are FEARFULLY and WONDERFULLY made?

As Margaret Feinberg says so succinctly in her wonder-filled book, Wonderstruck:

God extends endless invitations to encounter him, yet too often we sleep straight through. Unconscious of the life God wants for us, we slumber in the presence of the sacred and snore in the company of the divine. We remain asleep while God roosts in our midst.

Just Saturday, I attended a memorial service for a dear friend’s husband. He was only 6 years older than me. As the pictures flashed on the screen, snippets of his life, it was obvious that he was one of those for whom the world held much wonder, his was a life not wasted. Sad as it was for the ones left behind, they have the comfort of knowing that. And knowing that now, He sits in the presence of wonder we can scarely imagine, at the feet of Jesus. That is the most precious thing we can leave our loved ones.

I want to give others that gift. I want to give God that gift. I want Him to know how grateful I am for every moment He gives me. I think that’s one of the best ways we can honor God and be a blessing to those around us. When we open each other’s eyes to that wonder all around us, we are doing the work of the Kingdom.

Each and every day, God is telling us to look up, look out. Nature is one of the biggests ways He waves His hands to get our attention.

Just now, almost to prove my point, a hummingbird hovers in mid-air, and I see the way he catches the light. That little heart beating at an improbable 1,260 beats per minute I wonder how such a small little creature can teach such a big lesson.

If just we open our eyes long enough to see it.

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

Psalm 139:1-6

Accompanied by Grace

We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps. Proverbs 16:9

This morning the moon led me to work, almost all the way in, and it was like watching a poem. It was one of those big yellow moons. The kind that always take my breath away. I greeted it and then I greeted God.

Sometimes I think He is hiding His face behind it. I can always find the face right away and know which direction he is looking, up down or sideways. This morning he was looking down and to the side, gazing on earth, gazing at me.

If the moon could flirt, he was.

He played peek a boo with me, peering between the big cement beams when I was going under the new overpass. Man can build his buildings but only God can keep this big yellow moon up in the sky. Just then, the London Philharmonic was playing a beautiful rendition in strings of a song I have heard before.

The thought occurred to me that this might be one of those moments I will always remember. The morning the moon and the music and God all worked together to serenade me.

I thought: Remember this right now, because right now the people you love are here, but there will come a time when they are not, and you will think of this moment when the moon and the music and God all worked together.

Yesterday, I called my Mom and Dad just to tell them I loved them. It’s only once you get older that you begin to see the sacrifices they made to raise you….to give you not only what you needed, but many times what you wanted.

While they went without.

As God and the moon dipped below the San Tan mountains I did a little intake of breath. I didn’t think it was possible to get any more beautiful but just then he, she, it did.

Right then she looked like an elegant lady taking her leave in a sequined gown of gold.

Goodbye moon, and thank you for accompanying me on this grace journey today.

I will miss you, but I know you have others to captivate.

Photo credit: google images.

The Woodpile

It was just a little place to store wood.

It looked harmless enough, and yet when I saw it things tumbled out of my heart that I didn’t know were there.

There was the promise of the first snap of fall and the times when the leaves start floating down,

back down to rejoin the earth.

There were long nights by the fire, and conversations by the glow of embers burning low.

It was celebrations toasted and ending and new beginnings.

And all in that little stack of wood.

I saw snow falling, heard rain pelt on the window and moaning winds and creaking branches scraping on windows.

Times when it’s so cold that only your nose is peaking out of the covers.

It is camping and sadness and times that will never come again. It was remembering the time my Dad and I stacked wood and what a good time working together we had.

And how long ago that was now.

It was prying a lid of emotions that I try to keep neat and stacked just like that wood.

Somehow that little woodpile makes me wonder just how much the human heart can hold without spilling over.

The walks I never took

I have always been a girl who loves a walk. Often, while people are talking and socializing, I will be the one who slips out back. I want to know what’s in the back of the beyond. Even now, sitting at this computer, somewhere I hear the slam of a squeaky screen door and picture myself looking for that path that leads through the woods.

There are so many things you can do just besides the walking on a walk. There’s thinking, ruminating, wondering, discovering hidden treasures, finding God just to name a few.

Walking sets the mind free and takes it off its tether.

On this particular walk not long ago, I found myself wandering out the back door and being let further by a little dot of yellow in a sea of green. It beckoned me closer, and the breeze caused it to nod encouragment, as if I needed it.

Have you ever noticed that flowers and tree’s don’t need to talk? This one beckoned me without saying a word.

I found myself kneeling at the clover looking for the four-leaf……and for a moment I felt like the kid I used to be when I could hear the trees whispering and actually believe that leprechaun’s were hiding behind them.

I wonder, does imagination lose its power, or do we let it go?

And as I leaned in with my camera, she beckoned me closer still. I saw her intricate beauty and I wondered why she was there all alone.

God planted her just He has planted me.

She blooms for His glory all by herself, not even having to try. Maybe she knows something I don’t. Could it possibly be that easy?

I am intrigued with the idea of God walking. I am captivated by the thought that someday God will walk with me in the cool of the evening like He did His first kids.

God walks, imagine that.

And now I am thinking of another very important thought.

Of all the walks I have taken, I have only regretted the ones I didn’t take. It hurts me now to think of times when someone asked me to go and I thought I had better things to do.

I didn’t.

So today, if someone asks you to go or if your spirit tugs at you to step outside and walk down the road?

Whatever you do, don’t say no.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day……Genesis 3:8

Yes, He walks…..that proves it.

The day I took my wonder back

I am so excited! Today is day #1 of the Wonderstruck book club blog posting. I am linking up with Duane Scott and Shelley Miller and writing about the book once a week through May 8.

I have long been a student in the school of Wonder. My folks taught me at a young age to live with my eyes open and ears tuned to the beauty of God’s creation. We didn’t go to Disneyland when I was a kid, we went camping. When I read the first two Chapters of Margaret Feinberg’s book I was hooked. She had me at the Northern Lights, and Hobbits. But what do you do during those times when the worries and stress of life has squeezed the wonder right out of you?

What I do is pray. Then I go outside and let the wilderness speak for Him.

I tried to tell myself it wasn’t because of the snake that I hadn’t been to the trail this year. I tried to convince myself it was other things.

But I knew the truth.

In my mind’s eye I could still see it. Coiled there in the sun. Waiting for me to find it. Well, no it wasn’t, but that’s what it felt like. And then right after that we saw the rattler in the road and I remembered how fast it coiled when we slowly idled by. Gave us both the creeps.

The mountain had been calling me for weeks. Someone had told me the Superstitions were ablaze with color and I had decided, today was the day. I needed to hear the quail call minus the sound of the freeway in the background.

When I got there, several cars were already parked in the lot. Good, I thought. More people on the trail means more footfall to scare away the snakes. With camera bumping against my side, I headed out. The desert was ablaze with yellow flowers and for a moment I forgot my trepidation and clicked some photos.

I felt like God had graced the area with hundreds of bouquets just for me.

I took a deep healing breath and walked toward the trailhead. My heart was pounding even though I had scarcely begun walking let alone climbing. I scanned the trail from side to side as I walked, eyes peeled for any movement. I jumped back at the sound of a harmless lizard scuttling through the brush. My eyes drank in the sights and sounds as I tried to erase that other sinister image burned into my brain.

Breaking into a trot, I figured if I made enough noise, the snakes would have warning and time to get out of my way. Or get really ticked off. How stupid, I thought. That’s just what they hope to do to us with their clever rattles of theirs.

In times when I have been deeply distressed, nature has always been a way for me to find God again, to get back my balance, and I was tired of letting this fear win.

As I approached the place where I had seen it last year, I prayed for God to deliver me from my silly fear. I made up a mantra, “Damnsnake, Damnsnake, Damnsnake,” and I uttered it under my breath. Then I started to get mad at it all over again for robbing me of trail time this year. With head down and heart pounding, I soared up the mountain in what felt like super-human strength. I did it!

I felt a victory bubbling up in my heart. I even paused to take a photo to commemorate the spot as I felt my wonder come flooding back.

When I got to the midway point I rested on the bench. I felt exhilarated and free. Buoyed by my victory, I greeted fellow hikers and felt joy spill over me like a fountain. I had told myself that for this first time back, I wasn’t going to go all the way up to the top.

Now that I had it back, I simply had to go all the way.

On the way up to the top, I met an elderly man from Canada coming down. He held two walking sticks and was dressed in a dapper cotton plaid shirt and hiking shorts. There was a spark of Heavenly light in his eyes and it inspired me to see him out enjoying life, letting nothing stop him. I stopped and we talked about this and that, and then I went on my way and he went on his.

I thought to myself, this is catching, this wonder thing. And I thought, and not for the first time in my life:

Wonder is contagious, and it’s something we can pass on.

I sailed down the mountain, my spirits lifted to the heights of Heaven, my day transformed by wonder.

Smiled on by grace.

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

Why Bach made me cry this morning

I heard the announcement for the Brandenburg concerto before it came on and I was glad. I was on my way to work, with all the people I care about swirling around in my head. Some of my best talks with God are on the way to work. I see the Ford F-150 I see everyday and I pray for my brother because that’s what He drives. I pray for my Mom and Dad who despite their advancing years, have little down time for themselves and so I pray for them too.

And I was praying for Elaine too. Today she has to deal yet again with the director of the care home her Mom will hopefully be going into soon. The truth came out yesterday after he hemmed and hawed and he said, “Well, I don’t really agree with the caseworkers’ Level 1 assessment…..and I really don’t deal with her anyway, I have my own……and actually we get less money from the state for Level 1 care…..” Really.

“Unless,” he said, “the family is willing to contribute monetarily.” So it seems it’s mainly about the money not the care, and that’s disheartening. And when I think of how much stress she is under already, I don’t know why she should have to put up with this as well.

The first strains of music started playing and I wasn’t prepared for the tears when they came. Mascara liquefied as I tried to staunch the flow. All of a sudden, I was 18 again. It was the fall after I had purchased my first stereo, bought with my own money. When I got a real job, it was the first thing on my list. It cost me either $179.00 or $79.00, the years and inflation have skewed my memory on that one.

It took up my whole closet with big tower speakers placed strategically apart on either side of the room. My first classical music album was borrowed from the public library. It was Vivaldi, but one of my first actual purchases was the Brandenburg concertos by Bach. That fall I listened to them over and over.

I would gaze out my bedroom window and watch the gold leaves fluttering in the wind as I listened to that music fill the room and those moments solidified in my mind. Anytime I remember fall back then that’s what I think of.

Right along with cracking walnuts on the garage floor, Halloween, crackling fires, flannel shirts and coconut rolls from the bakery on the corner.

My Mom would tell me to turn it off because it made her nervous. The fast parts anyway. And the slow parts she said made her sad. I think that was what sparked the tears this morning, thinking of her. And my tears fill all over again at my desk just now, because I love her and she is much too close to Heaven for my comfort level and so is my Dad.

And I just want to tell everyone I care about right now, how I wish everything could be easier and I wish I could make it that way for them. And just when I was feeling like one of those silly sentimental people who cry at the drop of a hat I looked across the street and the silly fountain on the corner seemed to be squirting right in time to the music.

It was a Grace moment.

I have learned that God does those things all the time. We just don’t notice all the time. But today I did. He always seems to find a way to make me smile, God does.

Thomas Merton, Psalm

The forms and individual characters of living and growing things, of inanimate beings, of animals and flowers and all nature, constitute their holiness in the sight of God. Their inscape is their sanctity. It is the imprint of His wisdom and His reality in them.

The special clumsy beauty of this particular colt on this day in this field under these clouds is a holiness consecrated to God by His own creative wisdom and it declares the glory of God. The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints.

The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God. This leaf has its own texture and its own pattern of veins and its own holy shape, and the bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength.

The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints. There is no other like Him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity.

But what about you? What about me?

Thomas Merton, Psalm

New Seeds of Contemplation

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

Nature