26 April 2013

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

 

24 April 2013

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

20 April 2013

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

 

19 April 2013

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


Five Minute Friday 
Joining Lisa-Jo where the word today is jump

 

17 April 2013

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.

 

16 April 2013

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. 



hanging out at with the other poets at the bar tonight

 

13 April 2013

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 
 
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

12 April 2013

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

11 April 2013

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

09 April 2013

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

 

06 April 2013

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

 

04 April 2013

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. 

 

03 April 2013

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


 

02 April 2013

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

Join the Compassion Blogger Network
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.

  

01 April 2013

something started

there is a stirring
deep
and spreading
yes something will be born
or take flight