Psalm 139 and a half

Nothing I do today will surprise you God. My day is already mapped out by you. You’ll be there the whole time I am cleaning the floors, dusting the shelves. You’ll be nodding in time to the music I play while I vacuum because I know you like the Newsboys too. You know my every ache and pain, my every small complaint,

my every praise, my every prayer.

You will smile at things that make me smile because you know that smiling is just another way to give you praise. You peer inside the dark chambers of my soul, that place where I have pulled the curtain over. You throw a spotlight on all those places, Lord. They don’t scare you.

You know about the eight pounds I am trying to lose.

You also see the things I hold back from you (as if I really could), things I clutch tightly too for fear of losing them. I think if I hold on too tight you will test me by taking them away. Take them Lord! If I had to I could live without every single one,

But I could never live without you.

All around me, I see the glory of your creation. You seem to love taking my breath away.

When I close my eyes I can imagine all of our prayers playing on Heaven’s giant ticker tape.

Thank you for caring about all my secret heartaches and fears. You know every one. Bind up my wounds with your precious oil.

And thank you, Abba Father, for loving me no matter what.

When God sounds like a Jewish mother

Days like today it seems like praying amounts to throwing a cup of water into the ocean. All around me, everyone I am close to is in some kind of crisis mode. I don’t mean things like your car wouldn’t start or you didn’t get the grade you thought you deserved on that test. I mean big things. Life altering things. Problems so big they actually swallow everything else up and leave you reeling, trying to catch your breath and recalculate the direction of your life.

Problems that eclipse all the regular normal day-to-day life as you know it.

Right now, if my heart could make a sound, it would be like that dove I hear crying right at this very moment outside this window.

I am in here right now, in my prayer closet. My little shed where so much happens. My back is having some kind of a spasm today and after trying to sit unsuccessfully in this chair, I grasp the table and stagger to my feet.

Suddenly I hear God sounding very much like a Jewish mother in my head. “So quit complaining, already. You just finished saying how great the need was, so you can still kneel right? Is there anything wrong with your knees? Are they broken? Oy vey….these kids I have to deal with.”

This alone proves how much of a healthy sense of humor God has. He had me there.

It’s not that I know much about Jewish mothers mind you, but I have my own Mom who never fails to remind me how good I have it and how others don’t when she catches a whiff of anything close to me feeling sorry for myself.

I glimpse the globe which for a reason that will soon be apparent, didn’t make it to storage. I slid it up to where I was kneeling so I could see it, this world that God so loves. I touched that globe, and then God revealed to me what it was there for in the knot of tears that formed around my throat and threatened to spill over.

Sometimes God uses props. I layed both hands on it then, and I prayed for everyone in my life, and then the world too.

I thought of Moses and his staff, Jeremiah and his linen belt. Me with my forehead now resting on the globe, in this little prayer shed, in this town, on this planet. And then I felt just a little bit like God must feel when He looks down on this earth, knowing He could change it all in an instant, waiting for us to do what we expect Him to. He has given us everything we need to help, to heal the ocean of pain, but too often we look to Him because it’s so much easier to blame someone else.

God is an easy target.

Sometimes I think we read the verse about how He so loved the world and we leave it right there in that past tense. The truth is, He is actively loving it still. He never stopped.

Each and every day when the sun comes up He proves it all over again.

All these things have to play out in each of our lives. Next year it may be something entirely different, but God will still be the same.

He is after all, the God of yesterday, today and forever.

And even if it sometimes feels useless to pray? It never is.

Because He hears every one.

And sometimes He uses props to prove His point.

Evening Benediction

I end the day with a bit of watering…..summer is coming and the desert is already thirsty, almost as if it’s in anticipation of scorching relentless merciless rays it drinks. I watch the ground soak it in and it makes me thirsty too, so I pause to tilt back the Dasani. I drink it in as greedily as the plants. I guess this is what you call puttering in the yard. And it’s a good way to end the day.

I go in and pull shades up to let a bit of the sunset in and turn on the evening lights and then I go back outside and watch the birds do their nightly crisscrossing to and fro across the sky. Silently the sky speaks volumes.

I sit and watch the show and I can’t seem to stop.

A day ends, a life ends, both quietly, both almost without notice.

One last glory in the sky, one breath you’re there, the next you’re gone. I marvel at how quickly the earth swallows up our memory.

Almost as easy as crashing waves washing away the castle you just spent an hour building.

Some go with fanfare, headlines, processions and some go quietly but none go unnoticed by God. Ever.

I watch the sky bleach color, first gray and now one last splash of pink before darkness swallows it up. The birds are silent now. They know the proper way to bring an evening in. I wish I could see them tucked in their boughs. Not for the first time, I wonder if any of them lose their balance and plummet to the ground as they drift off to sleep, like I do sometimes sitting upright.

I close the cover of my Ipad as well as my eyes and say a prayer for all the heartache in the world, for loved ones near and far. It’s what I do when I can’t do enough.

It’s my benediction, my way of honoring a man I knew for twenty-four years. A man who liked to wear cowboy boots and stetson hats once upon a time, and was known to have a temper, but could fix anything as long as he had a can of WD40. And he always had several.

And who also was known to have a soft heart when you least expected it.

When we have real communion

As I sit here the birds are in chorus across the street and the suns rays are glorious across my back. I can barely see the screen in the light, but I have to be out here. I don’t want to ignore God’s beautiful morning.

In prayer just an hour ago, my insides felt as flat as a gray stone. I whispered, “How is it that I can sit here, knowing the God of the Universe is here listening to my prayer and I can feel so emotionally flat? How is that possible?”

I don’t let it out, I don’t talk to Him because it sounds too much like whining. It’s better to keep it stuffed behind the barrier. But then I do start sharing it all, and as it spills out something wonderful happens. Distant, Holy, Immovable, Omnipotent God becomes my Abba Father again. And it’s warmer than the sun on my back how He loves me. And once again it surprises me how He really does want to hear it all.

The wine becomes the blood, and the wafer becomes the body and it’s something real, something we can see, hear taste and touch in Him and each other. And it’s bigger than anything else in this life. And when our tears become like the wine and we pour out our hearts to each other? This is the gift exchange God really wants. Freely we have received, freely we give.

This kind of Holy transubstantiation is what He gives us first so that in turn, we can give it to others.

Inside me the rock cracks open and tears come when I realize that what has just happened is something Holy, something of a miracle.

The doves coo and the birds continue their serenade and Elaine honks as she goes by in her school bus. She sees that the umbrella is up and I am out here. The kids will be glad to have her back today. I don’t think the substitute driver sings with them or compliments them on their outfits, or loves them enough to not let them get away with everything. She never looks through them, she always sees them and they know it. And since Jesus is in her, He is on that bus too.

And I know He is smiling while she is doing His work with those kids.

The sun beats down, warmer now, and I revel in its glow.

Because I never have to play that daisy game with God, because I know it’s always the same answer, “He loves me.”

Bringing eternity into the here and now

Join Shelly Miller and Duane Scott today for the Wonderstruck Book Club!

There are times when you need to get away and you need it as bad as you need air.

When E’s Mom was living at the house, I took mini-Sabbaths often at Wal-Mart amidst the patio furniture. It’s a far cry from a pine forest or waves lapping against your feet, but hey, sometimes you have to take what’s readily available. At work I go outside just to hear the birds and maybe throw them some bread from my sandwich. Or I take a short walk and gaze up at the clouds to remind myself that it’s all still there. I find those times are crucial for my emotional and mental well-being.

I have always been attracted to the idea of praying the hours, the idea of taking a set time each day for prayer. To me, the morning and the evening are Holy and I feel I have missed something if I don’t get to see the sunrise or see His grand artwork in the sky at the close of day. When I first started having a regular prayer time, it usually went pretty much the same. I would start with praise, thanking Him for anything and everything that came to mind, then I would pray for specific needs of people for myself or others.

Now, I try to follow His leading more. Sometimes I ramble on and sometimes I sit in silence. Sometimes I just breathe and meditate on God’s goodness, and that is a prayer too. Sometimes I use my prayer language and sometimes, like Margaret, I use just a few words…..peace, or hope or sometimes just help! (I use that one a lot)

When I willingly get off the merry-go-round even for a moment, and get in tune with God’s rhythm I have found that something within me expands…….the world gets smaller and He gets bigger.

If I can, I extend my prayer time by a morning walk. I have always been a nature girl with my ear to the ground waiting to learn the secrets God reveals through what He has made. The desert captures you slowly. You resist at first seeing only the thorny plants, the relentless heat, but then the desert blooms and the lightning strikes and wonder abounds.

It speaks to those who listen. All of nature does. It holds mysteries that only God knows the answers to. How the Cactus wren can land and live in the giant Saguaros without getting impaled is beyond me. Each time I see them land, I almost want to close my eyes. But God has shown them just how to do it.

These quail babies at 4 days old are totally out of the nest and on their feet following Mama……I have seen as many as eight!

And this mourning dove I saw when I took my walk early one morning, safely nesting between the barbs of this cactus, God knows she will be safe there from predators. She looked out at me calmly serene in her surroundings, at peace as I strolled on by.

Observing the wonder of God’s creation is one way we can honor Him and in order to properly do that, we need to slow down long enough to see it. I love how Margaret Feinberg puts it:

Making time to pause isn’t just a holy opportunity but a divine command. Pg. 67

And when we follow God’s leading by making one day different from all the rest, we enter into His rest and then we see why it’s so important. We no longer think of the things we can’t do but the things we gain by taking a Sabbath. God wants it for us because it’s for our good. I am so grateful for Wonderstruck, because it has reminded me that living a life of wonder is really the only way to live.

Wonder is a way we can bring eternity right into the here and now.

Sometimes you have to slow to a stop and reset before you can experience divine presence, my hunger to know God increased as I learned how to develop a healthy rhythm in life and rediscovered the wonder of rest. Margaret Feinberg

Diary of a mad shift worker

Glad god can’t sleep and that’s good because that makes it really handy for when I need Him (which is pretty much all the time.)

Awake at three I stare at the dark ceiling and wonder what I should do with a full hour. An hour of precious sleep makes my mind rebel against doing anything else but. I could pray but……

Can I pray with one half of my mind when the other half is sleep obsessed?

I could get up and read the Psalms or Wonderstruck but I lie awake and see if I get drowsy.

Now that I am awake the cats walk in circles like hawks around me.

I decide god can hear the praying half. With that one half I pray for the Jumping Tandem retreat, and for Elaine, Diane, my family, Dawn’s Uncle. Pat.

I thank Him for yesterday today and forever.

I don’t pray because I am a good person, I pray because I need Him and so does everyone else. And because hard things are going on down here.

But thankfully, a lot of good is happening too. Now is always a good time to Praise.

I could get up and eat green jello.

I think for the hundredth time that unless there is a conversion experience, people pretty much die how they have lived. Either peacefully or kicking and screaming and making it inconvenient and difficult for everyone right up to the end,

Or with a measure of peace and grace knowing they have done the best they good with God’s help and joy knowing they are going home.

And for one last request, for my prayer request to happen soon. You know what it is, God.

Because you are up all night and nothing gets past You. And I am so glad.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel (and me) will neither slumber nor sleep. Psalm 121:4

photo credit: Google images

God picks you…..every time

Only a few things happening can cast me down to despair.
That’s how fragile I am, how fragile we all are.

And into my heart, He whispered like a warm breeze…..
If I didn’t remind you of the darkness from time to time,
You wouldn’t remember the candle I lit in your soul either.

I felt the love in what He was saying.

As tears came I said, “Yes, Lord.”
You know me so well.

I remember how it feels to stand in a place of tremendous
and absolute beauty and not feel or see a thing, and
it’s His great love for me and others that brings those feelings back

How else could I offer any comfort or help to others?
I can light a candle in their soul just the way you did for me, for until you did that for me?

I was a hopeless case.
Useless to myself and others.

Thank you, Lord for these times.
For reminding me just how fragile I am.
How I can feel in an instant alone on a playground not ever the first to be picked.

But you pick me, Lord. Again and again.
You said, “I want you.”

I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them. Psalm 34:4-7

And thank you, Psalmist for these words of yours……they never fail to comfort.

Once again, you light the window in my dark soul.

Thank you for the assurance that my full range of emotions from joy to sorrow and everything in between,

are safe only in Your hands.

In You only, will I put my trust…….

In all things that I contemplate as I am consulting you, I find no secure place for my soul except in you. And in you, I pray that what is scattered in me may be brought together, so that no part of me may be apart from you. Sometimes when you are working within me, bringing my scattered self to you, you draw me into a state of feeling that is unlike anything I am used to, a kind of sweet delight. I know that if this spiritual state were made permanent in me it would be something not of this world, not of this life. Augustine. Confessions 10

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.

Where almost everybody knows your name

I have been on a whirlwind trip back home and awash with thoughts and no time to capture them. For a blogger/writer this is almost like looking for a restroom when you really need one and find they are all closed for cleaning. There is no satisfaction until relief comes.

Also, no WIFI stations seemed to work and I think that was exactly what God in His wisdom intended for me and for everyone else.

My brother’s procedure went well. It took four hours for the Catheter Ablation and he came through with flying colors. I think I was helpful and that gives me a sense of satisfaction. There is something about pulling together as a family and making it all work that is good and right. The fruit trees were in bloom and yet we were alll moving so fast there was no time to “stop and smell the roses” or any other kind of flower for that matter, although we did manage to snatch some golden moments along the way.

It’s not too often we all hold hands and pray together, but we did before Dad and Ron left for the hospital.

Later, driving my Mom there I missed a turn and rediscovered how good and helpful strangers can still be when I pulled over to ask directions. I knew I had a local boy because he led me back on the right track and we were never so relieved to see “H” street. I had this proven twice in one day when I took another wrong turn at night and another very nice guy got me back on 50 and then South 99.

I hope God blessed them both for being so helpful.

Later, as we all sat in the waiting room watching old “Maude” reruns from the 1970’s, I asked my Mom if she remembered the long dresses I wore in High School when our singing group gave concerts. She said she didn’t but my Dad piped up and said he did. In fact, he remembered one specific dress I wore with blue puffy sleeves that tied in the back. I was touched by that.

After the hospital ordeal was over, I was doing an errand downtown for Mom and passed a friend walking down the street. I yelled out the window and asked if she needed a ride, and she was dumbfounded to see me. She didn’t know I was in town. That’s another thing that’s nice about small town life, you can still run into people you know everywhere.

The next day I went into the local Bible bookstore and ran into another friend who knew my folks. We had in fact, just been talking about her because she used to live a few doors down. She didn’t have the Newboys CD I was looking for so she actually burned me a copy while we talked.

And of course, there was the joy of seeing a little girl who was turned almost inside out she was so excited to see me. We did all kinds of things together. Saying goodbye is very hard for her, she takes after her Auntie that way, so I just squeezed her tight and told her I would be back very soon.

There is always a flip side to the joy of being there, since it brings to mind all the things I am not there for the rest of the time, yet I am so grateful I have a job that allows me to leave as much as I do, and it makes the time we do have all the more valuable.

I was so touched and grateful for all the prayers via family, friends, email, this blog and Facebook. I humbly thank each and every one of you. And thank you Elaine, for all you did in my absence and for making home a wonderful place to come back to.

I wish this were a longer post, but time is pressing and my break is almost up.

God is good, all the time.

Broken for You

I was rifling through the CD rack when I happened on one from my old church. The one I still miss so much. We caught a golden wave during those years when we worshipped there. It has changed. We have gone back several times and always felt like we were rushed out. It felt like a drive through service. Oh, it was slick and it was smooth and perfect.

No room for the Holy Spirit.

Still, I wasn’t prepared for my own reaction when the first song came on.

One minute I was standing, and the next I was on my knees on the cold laminate floor, hands in the air. With tears streaming, I remembered.

I had forgotten how anointed music sounds, how it affects you. And once again, all those years were back. All those feelings washed over me and something broke apart in my heart. Something inside me broke and I don’t want to be cold and unbroken anymore. I had forgotten how it felt to lose track of time just praising God and it felt……..so……..good.

I remembered how it felt to want to run down in front of the church again, that feeling of surrender.

I remembered how we would lay hands on those around us if they had a need, and how the Spirit felt like waves across the church. Holy……Holy……Holy.

No one should ever leave the church still holding onto a burden, but so often we do just that because we aren’t given the option, or we don’t take it upon ourselves to seek it out.

Yesterday, I needed out of control praise in my own living room. We have had to be too much in control too long, and it was time to let go. I needed the kind of praise I imagine the woman gave Jesus, the one caught in adultery. I imagine how she felt as she waited for the first stone to strike. Wondering how long it would take to die that way.

I imagine her relief as she heard a thud in the dirt instead and then a gentle hand on her shoulder, and an even gentler voice.

I really don’t think as He helped her up she just shook His hand and said, thank you Sir. I think she fell back to the ground and worshipped at His feet. I imagine she slobbered and wiped her tears and clutched at His robe that was dragging in the dust. I have a feeling she cried and prayed loud sobbing wet tears and wiped her nose on the hem of His garment.

And then maybe He helped her up again and smiled and gave her a rag to wipe her nose. And then I think she might have done a crazy dance like King David did all the way home, waving her hands in the air as her heart tasted forgiveness for the very first time.

I did both of those things in my living room yesterday morning, and it felt good. I want this rock inside me to break apart and stay apart. I want to throw the fish in the pan and let it cook itself and stay here forever like Mary, choosing the better part.

I realize we can’t always walk around a broken up mess, but I wonder why I don’t much more often.

Thank you, Lord. Your timing is perfect as usual.

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

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