The Sea and Me

A  while back I read A Gift From the Sea by Ann Morrow Lindbergh.  It was a few days full of deep sighs as I read.....some words just do that to some hearts.  I wrote a little as I read those few days and lately I've come back to add more.  Ann said:

 The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient.  To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith.  Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches.  Patience and faith.  One should lie empty, open, choiceless as the beach---waiting for a gift from the sea.
--Ann Morrow Lindbergh from A Gift From the Sea

  I see something bouyed in the waves. It is far off in the distance, but it is being drawn in by the tide, if I can just stay here and wait for it.  

What is it that I see?

Maybe that  He is the sea and the beach..........that is me.   For He does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy.  No, one can not force His hand, find treasures He has buried from you or from me.... for now.  You can not take these gifts by force, or force of your will.  But wait for the Sea.

"One should lie empty, open, choiceless as the beach".  But I want my gifts. In fact, I'd like to order them myself.  No, nothing material..., but answers, answers,  to my questions. I want good work to do, I want promises kept.  I want reward before duty is done, I want choices and assurances in this life. I'd like beauty before ashes..I'd like character before struggle, and maturity before pain, I want to see what's ahead sometimes, but when "ahead" arrives in the now, I want to send it back to there. I want blessings and the kind of life that I had planned.

   Did you really say I should lie empty, open and choiceless? Choiceless because You make the best choices for me?

But what if He chooses "hard" for me.  What if I waited for my gifts from the Sea (who is HE) and they were covered with thorns, or if they were only opened through struggles, tears, and grief?  What if His gifts hurt and change me?  What if I loose my "identity" because of these gifts from the great Sea.  

And then I saw it........as I was the beach and the beach was me, and the Sea, it covered over me, lifted me and drew me out with the tide.  I vanished in the Sea...my choices, my chosen identity, my plans, my will, my gifts... just vanished into the Sea.  And I then was free. 

Proverbs 3:5-6

New International Version (NIV)

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.^[a]
 

Go Home and Tell

“Jesus… said (to the man he had just cast demons out from),” Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.” … ~Mark 5:19 ..............................verse shared and snagged from Ann's blog

 

click for music as you read :)

"O.k", I thought as I read the verse this Thursday morning.  "I have stories of mercy to share as well."   

Camping out under the umbrella of this great mercy covering me, and the "inward" me is dancing like the child I once was---- and sort of still am.  Outwardly I show my age, but inwardly I am getting younger.....yes.....like this, "And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Mathew 18:3).  But we can enter this delightful Kingdom with child-like faith..and a child-heart that is soft to God.  It amazes me that I was even invited in........Me! and EVERY person that I've laid my eyes on in 46 years is also invited in to share relationship with God....no one is left, no one ever has been left out of this invitation.  He is a generous Daddy.  But many will choose to stay away.   

some mercy...some blessing to me

 And because of this believing faith, our own bodies become a place where this amazing, life-interupting, plan making, door opening, earth shaking, gentle speaking, heart comforting Father will live.... (1Cor. 6:19) will live in us. ♥ You might have heard that He used to live in a temple....but those days are over.....He would rather live in us.  And with those thoughts I have my first cry of the morning...it is just too wonderful for words, isn't it?  

my mercies

So, to tell you of his mercy to me as I began to do earlier is to tell you of a young person who was going their own way, trying out the world for what it was and then being drawn in by a pursuing Father (God)who brought me to the place where I could clearly see that to lay my life out to Him would be the decision that would make everything right with my world.   So, I began to know Him from there, and little did I know how sweet it would be.  And then His mercy carried me through life up to here and along the road, good things came!  And along the way there were deep hurts, losses, relationships that sour, times when unforgiveness found a place in me to stay awhile, there was gripping fear on the road, disappointments, pain, sin.......The tough blending with the great and good and the bad. 

 What I can tell is that because of this mercy, the road is always leading HOME and the light of love is always turned on for us, and the bad always leads to good, and the hard is always swallowed up in joy in the end.  This is just a part of this mercy that I've known and yet there is always MORE! 


There is always more. ♥

♥

We Will........

Sitting, thinking of how nothing else matters more than this: One day we will see Him, who purchased all of us for love's sake.  And nothing else is greater than learning what love is all about.....being loved by Him,  loving Him back.....and loving each other deeply and from the heart.  

The idea that Mr. Duke..... "stepped through the door" (as he sang it), just a few days after this was recorded in Dec. 07 makes me smile for him.  

(lyrics)
It's almost as if someone is standing there
And I don't know what I'd give to see the face that seems to stare
All my life I'd give to know His ways
But, just how much I know, I'm no fool I dare not say

As I go in the way of the earth
As I step through the door
There where time is no more
I shall see God

Older, much older now, I still believe
That when all else is gone the Rock of Ages cleft for me
Holding something I can't feel or see
I'll tarry 'til the day I hear the music of the free

As I go in the way of the earth
As I step through the door
There where time is no more
I shall see Perfect peace, perfect love

Finally I'll face the beginning
As I go As I go in the way of the earth
As I step through the door
There where time is no more
I shall see God

I shall see Him
I shall see Him
 

Nothing is Wasted

Could you use a reminder (like I have needed lately) that God is near and is always bringing us closer to Him with LOVE?  I love these lyrics that pointedly remind, or declare, that whatever you have been through, whatever trial has befell you, no matter how tangled you have become in sin, sorrow, sadness, pain, or confusion.............all is not lost!  All is not lost, friends, and in our Father's great Kingdom, not only is it not lost, but it is also not wasted.  Our Father will make the most of every situation and circumstance and do what He always does for us........he makes every. single. thing work out for the good of those who truly love Him.  Every thing.   (Check it out:  Romans 8:28). 

This is why Jason Gray can write:

The hurt that broke your heart
And left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope's a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground where joy will grow


This is the "land" we can live in.......the land of HOPE.  This is the air we can breath, this air that always tastes of spring and new beginnings and with the song we can sing:

 It's from the deepest wounds
That beauty finds a place to bloom
And you will see before the end
That every broken piece is
Gathered in the heart of Jesus
And what's lost will be found again

And Jesus is why, I believe, as the song repeats w/ profound beauty that:

Nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted


So breath deeply the spring air and imagine with each sweet breath that you are filling your lungs with the stuff of God....and though the ground is dark, cold, and wet right now, beauty will bloom there again very soon.

Fearless; We Can Be

When you have so little to say, but your mind is on overdrive for days on end, and then someone comes out with so many things that you have held in your heart, but never heard out in the open.....that's kind of exciting.  I haven't read any Francis Chan, but I've known for a long time that he was impacting the church.  Now that I've heard a few things he's been saying over the years, I am making plans to hang out on YouTube and listen some more.  Maybe I'm the last Christian on the planet to have heard this segment, but encase someone out there hasn't heard it, here you go!  I'm priveleged to be the one to pass it your way.  

I'm feeling extra free today...free because it is completely right to trust God for today and also for the future.   Worry is a weight that doesn't belong on our backs......our future belongs to God....I'm walking a bit lighter today just contemplating the life God has given us to live.......if we can accept the truth of our freedom and our security in God.  

 

You're Not Crazy: Francis Chan on the Summit Conference

 Here is the link to the 2013 Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit 9 Conference:    http://www.summit9.org/

We are hoping to go!

When it Snows

When it snows..........we all loose our heads.

 When we take up the mail, we hide a camera under our coat

                    and start grabbing the snowy moments; click, click,   click.......greedy, like we want to save them all for ourselves.

 

because everything just looks more interesting when it snows...

and because snow makes our hearts pump a little     faster.........strange, right?   

            

... because ordinary things look  extraordinary in the snow.

Snowy daffodils; extra lovely.

                                             

                                    Snowy lil' donkeys are a sight to see.

Snow makes middle aged ladies climb up icy ladders just to take a picture from the loft in the barn.

                                       Snow makes school bells look cool.

It makes ducks quack and run like mad.

It seems to have made guinea foul do what they NEVER do...visit the house.

                          

                   But just for a minute or two.

                             

Then, when we come in from outside, we peak out windows.

We just keep peaking because something might look snowier and we might miss it.

And they DO look snowier! 

Snow makes us a little giddy 'round here.

The Scare Crow and the Harvest

We headed out to a conference last night, just the two of us.  We went to hear Kathryn and Alan Scott who came the way from far away Ireland to share.

This woman had some words.  Words that seemed like a healing balm needing to be delivered forward.  I want to deliver these words onward.  I hear that the broken are waiting  for a message such as this........................



She sang:
Over the brokenness, in- to the emptiness You are singing again
Words of redemption and songs of deliverance, healing that comes in Your name
Echoing down through the ages
Hearts are freed at the sound of Your voice
  
Her voice towered high with the message:

 It's the sound of Your goodness
The sound of hope filling the air
It's the call of Your kingdom
Awakening faith on the earth


And when Alan shared later we felt we were hearing words from God (via a humble servant)...surely those words were from heaven.   And Alan asked us if we knew what a "scare crow" was, and we did.   And he said the reason that scare crows work is because a crow is dumb.  And then he said that if a crow were smart and he saw a scare crow, he would not visit any other field but that one where the scare crow sits. He would know that that field is full of food!

And I knew that I'd been thinking like a crow that reverenced the scare crow with genuine fear.  The imagery was so plain.... and then freeing. 

And it wasn't a stretch for me to see, as Alan explained, that the field that he spoke of, full for the taking, was full of the lives of the lost around us, our neighbors, our co-workers.  They could be the weak laying in beds in nursing homes in my town, the imprisoned, the homeless, the destitute poor, yet the scare crow towers, angry, threatening, and wise (?).....driving us away from the field...making us go away empty.  But in the fields are our inheritance,  Alan reminded, and we need not be crows.  

  But for me, there was a particular field presenting in my mind's eye. A field full of children....orphaned and at risk.  The ones destined for American foster homes, in orphanages around the world, on literal streets, and in homes that are falling apart at the seams.  The scare crow calls out into the air pedaling his lies disguised as wisdom-- his driving lies to the world--   They have sounded like this to me:  

Harvesting here is too hard and not for you

Harvesting in this field  will change your life and bring more work to you ---and you know you had been longing for ease 

These are all rotten, ruined fruit.

They are more than you can handle.

This may bring trouble, cost, and loss to you.

These are all used up and damaged

This field is too much for you.

This will not bless you, lead you to  peace, ease and prosperity

This field is dirty,  and someone else's problem

The government has got this covered

Someone else has ruined this fruit and it will always be ruined in some way

You are not a leader and what you can do will not make enough difference to take the risk

You can't afford this harvest

  No one will understand if you harvest in this field

No one will help you if you do and you will also be misunderstood

No one will support you

If I start  in this field, do I have the staying power to continue on?

Your friends and family will think you are asking for trouble
.................................................. 

If the secret beauty of the field is determined by the size and foreboding message of the scare crow guarding it, then this must be one amazing harvest.  Wouldn't it be amazing  to gather up the orphans somehow...to see them as a rich and full harvest worthy of our sacrifice and our efforts?  And if this message is true, we would be the rich ones in the end running over with the joy of the harvest. 

Here is the last verse of Kathryn's song:

Over the barrenness, into the night
Over the loneliness growing inside
Over the hearts where hope's been destroyed
Louder and louder, it is Your voice