Love Never Fails

Love never fails.  Love never comes to an end. 

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Backdrop of the Battlefield

An old held-back post, or note to self in the blog files.  I must have been feeling the battle. 
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 Your life is not about any of this, Rhonda Michelle.  All of this only creates the backdrop to the battlefield for your soul and for the souls of others.  Your mortgage, the leak in your radiator, your family gatherings, your bank account, Christmas coming, your home, land, your debt, your cars and what is or isn't in your refrigerator are not what they may seem to be.  These are not just your life on a Wed. in 2014. They are only the backdrop to your real life.

Jesus prayed for you like this, ⁵ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.   We are meant to be here, but we need this prayer of Jesus to tread here because it is more than it seems. 
  

Jesus, our glorious man, is not recorded to have concerned Himself much with my list of things in above paragraph, as IF these were not the most important things in life?! What of that!?  If He didn't then why do I?  

  His hike into the wilderness was an epic battle with the devil during a 40 day fast.  All my hikes are to see beauty and gain strength. Most of my fasts are because I feel chubby. And when I kayak across the lake it is to feel something, see something and enjoy myself. But in 2014 I'm seeing them all in a different way; they are more.  All is more.

When Jesus skimmed the waters of the lake,  it was with eternal purposes in his heart.  Maybe the beauty of the sun glistening off of the water that day, and maybe there were fresh smells, the feel of the water between His fingers, the breeze and gentle waves making soft sounds against the boat. But He was going to command demons and set a chained man free. (Mark 5) He had the same sort of backdrop as me, but lived out of another dimension.  I want His dimension.

With  purpose He crossed from life over to death, and to life again to set many more free.  And He is pulling back the backdrop of my life so I can live like this glorious God-man.

A Song Sung Free

The big bird is the loudest on my farm.  He is rooster, hear him cockadoodle-do.  He is drawing in the morning air and thrusting out his morning song.  I like it. 

He has to.  Some instinct laid within his chest from the beginning assures that he will sing it up every morning where ever he is, whatever he is doing. I never doubt that he will sing.  "Someone" else chose for him to sing, and he ever will.

 But me, I am higher than him, created in a different order, from a different print.  Something distinct was laid within my chest from the beginning and I know it-- I can feel it. I can wield it, this something higher than instinct, this something royal and right, this autonomy tucked inside of me.  I am free to sing or not to. 


 But he is warming me up to the morning. Cockadoodle-do. He is unbolting a door, stirring up the choice in me.  The morning air seems delicious coming up through his jolly throat. But

let the lady-farmer sing a better song than him. Let morning air breath a higher word from me.  Let my choice charge the air with praise. Liberty makes my song so different than his, and heaven knows the sound of a song sung free.

How it Always is

This is how it always is; eyes open, the dark room, socked-up feet walking the cool hall to the cup of coffee, the open journal, the open Word, and then my words-- the words and the working out a life before a “Person” attending to me in those early morning hours. While a dog snores at my feet, there is a conversation, a qualifying prayer, a life that has become one long prayer.  Ever may it be. This is not my story, but OUR story and how it always is. I’m saying it because I want to, and because we often want to say this and can’t find the words for each other to hear us.

This is how it always is and how it forever will be;  our lives taken into the bosom of, NOT “the universe”, but the One who flings universes into place, and meets waking loved ones like this. And the comfort of this has changed our lives of questions and fear to something more.  He’s ever changing our lives to “more”.

This is how it always is, a daily learning that He is there; not scolding, not anxious to point out a flaw, a mistake, a misjudgment, a fault.  But anxious to delve deep into love with us so that all those things can be carried away one by one, liberation by liberation, step by step, freedom to freedom, and glory to glory as it has long been called. All the while, He's showing us how to love one another like this.

This is how it always is; fingers to keys, pencils to paper, or voices in our rooms to say thank yous, and why we are so-- to ask questions with golden letters because He said our questions are golden to Him. When He says things to me, they are clickedy-clicked out in red, as I like to remind myself that red is the color He chose to free us in, hung up and held by the punishment of someone else’s sins—every- “someone” - ever. 

This is how it always is, every day sitting, standing, walking in the never-ending invitation to come closer, but not always seeing it for ourselves.  Waking to learn how good He is, just how great, how kind and there.  This is how it always is because HE IS and always will be.

Come and See

He’s prepared a table, come and see.

In the presence of the enemy, all you can eat

He’s made a way with a plan and means

Come and see, oh come and see.

His robe draped round your frame

The grip of sin blew apart at the seams

And we step into what seems like a dream.

Come and see. Oh, come and see.

Remember when He gave you His ring

As if you hadn’t squandered everything

Welcomed like you'd always belonged
Come and see. Oh, come and see.

The way is lit, just press your steps
And watch a desert turn to spring 
You'll hear yourself both laugh and sing
Come and see.  Oh, come and see

Cause you are free, you are free.

Oh, come and see! Oh, come and see!

(A song)

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Psalms 23:5
Jeremiah 29:11
Luke 15:11-22
Psalms 126
2 Corinthians 3:17
Isaih 35

The Eve of a New Year

A crisp white page and a crisp new year right around the clock's corner.  From a rickety leather recliner in the spot by the window, sitting so aware of the last hours of the year I want to render something meaningful and true before I must let it go.  

I get a snack, a drink, look out a window, change the wet laundry to the drier and then sit down to carry on. Lively Wheatens wrestle one another next to me on my chair. The warm bodies crowding me, getting out of control.  One sits proudly right down on my resting right arm then ignites off the chair, raucously into play. :)  

 A realization has come over me and I don't have to try in order to sit grateful to the core in the eve of a new year.  I just am.  And I see why we're invited, called really, and directed into thankfulness. 
I think it is where the human heart was created to be, where we would be most alive. Gratefulness is a perfect fit for us, a sweet spot for the soul.  

 Morning by morning, like a safe shelter one can run to, or a life raft for one's heart no matter the depths of what could be despair. How deep no longer matters when always buoyed right up to where the sun shines--this has been the power of thankfulness to me. It has caused me to survey the passing year with such fondness (though full of trial and pain), as if it were the best year, but maybe what I'm saying is it was my most grateful year and that has colored everything in a rosy glow.   

The Precious Black and White

The precious black and white that communicates

Splendid words, arranged to perfection 

Tales of a pounding heart for people

A love that runs into hell to rescue them

The precious black and white lit up before the sun

The tab on the screen is my friend

The black and white comfort

The black and white hope

On the white screen lies the best words for free

I gobble them in the quiet

As they lift up from the white screen

And I am filled full again and again

Open a tab into the place, the space for a human race

Click the portal of beauty and truth

It's free, it's free

Push the tab and see

Redemption plan, mercy for man 

What a lucky girl I am

The black and white

the dark, the light

And me entwined in a story that started "in the beginning"

I saw you there too

It's true.  It's all true

There's a Father, a family waiting for you

The precious black and white that communicates

Splendid words arranged to perfection

A click on the link, and before you can blink

You're served a feast before the sun comes up today

Click and find a Gateway to The Precious Black and White

Pictures in a Closet

Pictures in a closet, lend me a hand, 

 deliver warm delights of my bygone days.

Turning back pages, tearing away hard edges from me.

 I have been so hard on her all these years, but staring into her eyes now, I am wondering a long and deeply felt "why"? 

She didn't try... she simply was.  Flipping the old pages shook her awake in me.  She's sharing some nice things with 52 year old me.  I wish I had ran into her before.

Her small, yet powerful pose powerfully points the way forward to me in an easy, childish sort of way.


And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3