Ending. Beginning.

What we call the beginning is often the end. 

And to make an end is to make a beginning. 

The end is where we start from. 

T. S. Eliot

I am closing a door.

I am opening a door.

The pattern of change continues.

Day follows day.

God leads, waits.

My part is to follow.

waiting in the quiet place with Sandy

and abiding with Cheryl

 

Giving account

Henri Nouwen once wrote:

When we live our lives as missions, we become aware that there is a home from where we are sent and to where we have to return.  We start thinking about ourselves as people who are in a faraway country to bring a message or work on a project, but only for a certain amount of time.  When the message has been delivered and the project is finished, we want to return home to give an account of our mission and to rest from our labours.

We were your mission, Mom
a project you began in your heart
long before we drew our first breaths

 

You gave yourself for our wellbeing
teaching us to throw ourselves into life
with passion, with dignity,
with respect and love for others

this was the example that you set

to find joy
to grab each moment

 

your primary ambition was to see us settled
"I just want you to be happy"

your strong refrain

 

You have finished the race
completed the task
the labour is done
the prize won

 

May your rest be sweet

Call to freedom

When you are interiorly free 

you call others to freedom, 

whether you know it or not.  

Freedom attracts wherever it appears.  

A free man or a free woman 

creates a space where others feel safe 

and want to dwell.  

Our world is so full of conditions, 

demands, requirements, and obligations 

that we often wonder what is expected of us.  

But when we meet a truly free person, 

there are no expectations, 

only an invitation to reach into ourselves 

and discover there our own freedom.

Where true inner freedom is, there is God.  

And where God is, there we want to be.

Henri Nouwen

Seeking a still place with Sandy

 

Just jump

What a delight to find once again the Lord has gone ahead of me.  I had no clue what today's Five Minute Friday prompt would be, but I'm sure He did.

The phone jarred me from sleep a few minutes after five this morning.  Mom was calling from the emergency room again.  The rehab facility had sent her by ambulance.  I was not surprised but not happy with the news.

I settled back beneath the blankets where Rick quickly wrapped his arms around me, drawing me close, asking for information.

Since I knew I would not fall easily back to sleep I turned my thoughts to the Lord, a silent cry.

Feeling every bit of my weakness I imagined myself standing on the edge of a cliff, surrendering, telling Him I wanted to jump, to let go and fall into Him.  

I saw what looked like a deep, spiraling black hole and for a moment fear clung to me.  

Yet as I landed in that deep darkness it was soft, velvet coated.  I knew then there was no where I could go where He wasn't, and burrowed in.

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you’re there!     If I go underground, you’re there! If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, You’d find me in a minute—  you’re already there waiting!

Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I’m immersed in the light!” It’s a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you. Psalm 139:7-12 The Message

 

Joining Lisa-Jo where the word today is jump

 

baby steps

I am coming back to my life in baby steps

taking longer than I would like

I feel I was gone for months instead of days

for each hour stretched endless

anxious, aching

I curl into the arms of my husband

drawing on his strength

and this, right here, is my place in the world

called here, I belong here

part of what God created, one from two

I've come back to my life

home

“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’ And he said, “‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”  Matthew 19:4-6 NLT

walking with the broken redeemed at Emily's

 

Always His

I have been away, not only from my home, my dear husband and my sweet dog, but also far from my quiet time with the Lord.  His love is without repentance, and though I felt distance between us He remains close at all times.

As I sat in silence at last this morning, I opened my journal for the first time in too many days and asked Him to share:

Do not feel you have disappointed Me, little one.  

Even when you could not see the light, or feel the light, 

you were still carrying the light.  

You shine for others to see

I will pour into all the places you have drained dry.

What you have emptied I will fill.  

Let Me soak every dry spot to overflowing,

 for you are, as always, Mine.

 

words

words

sharp, cold

fall like rain

collect at my feet

make the road slippery

ripe with danger

words

smooth, warm

drip like honey

cling to my heart

make the road sticky

slowing my steps

words

liquid, hot

refine like fire

burn deep in my spirit

make the road new

no time to linger

words

my currency

what I give, receive

breathe

Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. 

Psalm 139:4 NIV

hanging out at with the other poets at the bar tonight

 

The bridge

And besides, there is a great chasm separating us.

No one can cross over to you from here,

 and no one can cross over to us from there 

Luke 16:26 NLT

 

Praising the One Who bridged the gap,

making a way for all who call upon His name

Singing with the Sunday choir at Deidra's

lines no eye can see

The pattern

leads side to side

back and forth

where halls stretch long

alike in their design

nothing to direct the eye

or spirit upward

where peace dwells

 

yet my heart has learned to follow

lines no eye can see

winding to the secret place

where home abides for me

seeking the stillness with Sandy

abiding with Cheryl

clinging upward

I watch her heart

reaching to grasp

what it cannot hold

clinging backward

as forward doors

begin the swing shut

 

and the aching rips raw

for her to know

there is a gate

waiting for her knock

 

there is peace

I have known

as I cling upward

so deep, so wide

it can not be imagined

 

but my tongue is still

words do not come

just tears

joining the rest of the broken redeemed at Emily's

On assignment

I am on assignment

my time is not my own

I have come to serve

humbled, weary and distracted

I lean hard into the arms 

of the One Who sent me

and the prayers 

of those who lift me

thanks offered for you

praises raised in my sighs to Him

 

Nearer than we think

He does not ask much of us, 

merely a thought of Him from time to time, 

a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, 

sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, 

at other times to thank Him for the graces, past and present,

He has bestowed on you, in the midst of your troubles 

to take solace in Him as often as you can.

 Lift up your heart to Him during your meals and in company; 

the least little remembrance 

will always be the most pleasing to Him. 

One need not cry out very loudly; 

He is nearer to us than we think. 

Brother Lawrence The Practice of the Presence of God

linking with Sandy as I pray for her rapid healing and recovery

abiding with Cheryl

 

Chosen path

each new day

I choose yet again

to walk a narrow road

where the first footfall 

is often mine

there is uncertainty

in both the light

and the shadows

but I am reminded

once again

I do not walk alone

His words to me this morning  brought sweet comfort:

I Am with you wherever you wander, wherever you linger, near or far mean nothing to Me

We have come into agreement, little one, that I Am in you, as you remain in Me

No distance separates what is united in the secret place

Come and keep coming, let your heart remain open

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, 

because he has given us of his own Spirit. 

1 John 4:13 RSV

 

His furious longing displayed

In the last chapter of his book The Furious Longing of God, Brennan Manning writes:

These are moments of truth. You are alone with The Alone. God’s tender feelings for you are no longer dry knowledge. You experience a certainty of God’s longing for intimacy unlike anything you’ve felt in hand-clapping worship or anointed Scripture studies.

I have known such moments and I hold fast to them in memory.

I had been praying one night about ten years ago, asking the Lord to show me His love in a tangible way. The next morning, while still in bed, again during my quiet time of prayer, with one of my cats curled up beside me, I could feel God’s arm around me. I remember telling the cat “We’re not going to move, God is holding us.” Some years later I was talking with the Lord and reminded Him about how He put His arm around me. I could sense Him laughing as He replied “My arm? My child, that was just my little finger.” I thought, of course, He is so very big, I would fit in the palm of His hand.

His love is vast, unimaginable, an ocean I will gladly surrender to and drown in.

linking with the gang at Sarah's place

also walking with the broken, imperfect redeemed at Emily's


 

fragile perspective

the road stretches forward

under cover of intruding night

the place I left behind

soon to be another's

destination

where I journey on

they have already been

a shifting

dance of directions

dark upon light

perspective fragile

as thin bright clouds

this wanderer

always seeking

home

hanging out at the pub tonight

 

Compassion Sunday is almost here

April 21st is Compassion Sunday, but I don't want to wait until then to share with you the opportunity to get involved in the lives of those who need you.  As Compassion shares:

Research on the outcome of child sponsorship will be published in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Political Economy. Research that was conducted by Dr. Bruce Wydick, professor for the Department of Economics at the University of San Francisco. 

This independent research shows that children who participated in Compassion's holistic child development through the sponsorship program stayed in school longer, were more likely to have salaried or white-collar employment and were more likely to be leaders in their communities and churches than their peers who did not participate in our program. 

What Does This Mean for You? No matter who you are – Advocate, sponsor, donor, non-sponsor — you now have independent, empirical research validating Compassion’s Christian, holistic, child-focused, one-to-one Child Sponsorship Program. You can now confidently say, "It Works!”

As I have written about before, Rick and I sponsor a young boy in Uganda named Arafat.  Now I am praying and pleading on behalf of another young African child, a Kenyan girl named Joybishel.  You can find more information by visiting My Compassion Sunday page.

  

something started

there is a stirring

deep

and spreading

yes something will be born

or take flight