Coming and Going

My eyesight is both going and coming.  When I look at this white screen with only bare eyes, the images and letters are not clear to me; my sight is going.  But as I sit typing, looking through my purchased lenses, I see as the letters and images actually  are....quite clear.

I am getting older.  My vision is losing clarity.

When I was young and my eyes could see clearly, my spiritual eyes were impaired. I would wonder in my relation to God, I often could not see myself in relation to Him and I had many fears and many things along life's path seemed a blur. But as my physical eyes are waning, my spiritual eyes are sharpening. I have new lenses that sharpen my view. I see through lenses of faith and spirit and there is much more to see than I once thought! This is the grace of God at work in a growing habitual surrender to His love, His Word, and His path.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.  Ephesians 1:18.

Faith sees what mortal eyes can't see.   I no longer fear what my natural eyes can or cannot see, for faith sees what I need to see! 

Beyond the vision of two brown eyes is a glimpse of a Kingdom without end!  I see Him, my God, holding my hands, putting light on a path that I daily walk in.  I see, I see!   I see Him sitting on His throne in Heaven,  I see my spot in that place.  No longer feeling alone in troubled times, no longer feeling responsible for it all.  Faith sees all the things Jesus promised, provided, and planned.

Thank you, Father, for Jesus...

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free

Luke 4:18

Thank you for sight, for reversing the effects of spiritual blindness.

May your eyes be blessed today to see all He desires for you to see and give you peace.

Intentions: Asking For a Friend

When spring awakens and rubs her sleepy eyes, lifting a fresh gaze across the barren landscape has she come to bring bouquets or storms?  And when summer burns away her sweet morning dew and dries the rolling white streams, has it come to scorch the earth or ripen garden vegetables and fruit? And when the leaves turn golden within autumn’s warm crescendo, has death been ushered in upon the land or has it brought the season of harvest, pumpkins, football and friends?  And when winter blasts the earth with an exacting icy grip, is all lost or has it come to purify with its milky blankets of snow, to bring rest for one and all?

When He made the earth full of seed and people to walk bare and free upon it, was His plan all along to banish us and set us under a curse, or was his intention fruitful work, creativity, fellowship, and happiness forever? When He gave us the great law on the mountain in tablets of stone, did He wait to see us fail or give us hope to one day live a splendid way? 

Has He intended to fully keep us, provide for us, give us hope, gather us under His wing, free us from all that entangles us and keeps us from the pure expression of who we are here to be? Or has He left us to be afraid, confused, abandoned from time to time, expecting us to figure it all out in a worldly wilderness alone without a daily guide? Will He let sickness overcome us alone and the fear that surrounds it to steal the upward curving of smiling lips, the creativity from our minds, the deep love in our hearts for one another?  

I believe that spring awakens to scatter a field with blooms of vetch and mountain buttercup.  I believe she blows winds of change to give us more.  I believe spring comes with her pockets full of hyacinth and daffodil, that summer comes with long days and warm nights to give us time to sit under the stars and chase lightning bugs.  I am sure that autumn clothes us with comfort and winter with repose and I believe that all God's intentions are good, noble, and right--that He is perfectly kind. 

So when one asks Him why, there need be no fear in the answer.  He has the best of intentions.

.

Mists and Miracles 2013

The mist was rising mystical and beautiful over Gar Creek early as I drove past.  It captures our gazes from behind the rolled up windows every time.  And now the steam rising from the silver pot of Italian vegetable soup on the stove;  always, always I pause and think of it and how to explain it to the kids....those vapors rising.

And I smile wide this morning.  I smile and I sob too because I remember His word saying this in the book of James:


You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes................


And my very small mind reaches for this...........reaches hard to comprehend a few things like: 


You clothed me with skin and flesh, and you knit my bones and sinews together--Job 10:11)
..........within a vapor


For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future--Jeremiah 29:11.
..........within a vapor


For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end. Psalms 48:14
..........within a vapor


Somewhere within the wisps you and I have come.  In the mist I have run in fields and scaled those giant round bales of hay.  I have had puppies and written papers, had break ups and enjoyed brownies.  I have felt conviction of my sins then later was "joy drowned" when they were washed away from me.   I have felt compassion and hatred, have seen my babies born on hospital beds and became their admirer and servant forever. In the vapors I have learned bird songs and bought groceries, have prayed for a friend and asked for advice.  I have tried really hard and later, understood grace.  It suddenly seems so amazing that all of this He calls a vapor?


And I breath out the miracle of my breath and His plans for me and us, and consider that if all of this is just a vapor to Him, then what more does He have in store?


And then He reminds me,


 "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."  1 Cor. 2:9




 

Heavy Rain

I see it through a small clear space above the windowsill.
Rain falls in autumn.

I hear it from a nice room densely filled with peace,

enjoyed with a warm cup, a warm heart, a warm place 

Cool fall rain for me and thunder far away,

cars passing by on the wet road make a different sound 

Lightening flickers with a cool November rainfall.

It is almost 8 and I have engaged a fresh day.

Now the rain is twice as much as it was;

falling heavy, real and "now".

Life is heavy and real now.

 I’ve just noticed some words to the left of the space I’d been watching-- the one affording a peek at the rain.  They echo.  

Heavy rain and I am not drowning.  Heavy rain, and still, I will see the sun coming up over the hills.  Heavy rain; the cleansing kind, the watering kind.  Is this water for the thirst that will come later on when it is dry? 

Heavy rain can be kind. It is today.  Heavy rain is mine.

Rain falls in autumn.  Do I speak audaciously as if I am the only one?  No. Yet I am all of just one. And for just one and a billion it falls. 

I hope you feel it is falling for you. 

The LORD your God is with you; his power gives you victory. The LORD will take delight in you, and in his love he will give you new life. He will sing and be joyful over you

Zephaniah 3:17 (Today He is singin' in the rain)

We Worship

The singers stand ready on the stage, hearts warmly postured toward praise, their inward worship is stirred and spilling before a sound is made. 

The strings announce the sound and the drum leads this beautiful company forward. Their voices each rise like a plume of pure and golden breath, lifting like incense to Jesus; Savior.

We worship.

Voices tuned up, tuned in and tight-- spark a flame. As the song ascends, one bright and rising plume leans into the other and intertwines, one voice now clinging to the other, both disappearing into one fresh sound.  The next reaches and vines around them; like rivers converging into one.

We worship.

The horn breaks in, making declarations! Announcing freedom, proclaiming the kingdom come! We lift our eyes higher, our hearts beat together and we hone our gaze deeper into this place of reverence and awe.  

We worship.

A diverse gathering has joined the song; they feel the familiar ease of dear friends and exhale their cares into the bosom of family.

We worship.

May they be one as you and I are one.  John 17

The Town Bird

One day I suddenly came to town and slept under a town sky, under a shingled town roof, and beneath a white chenille bedspread I bought in the town.  When I woke, the sound of the rooster was far off in the country and I couldn't hear him and his rousing reverence to the rising sun.  The luscious red cardinal perched in the oak tree beside the worn country porch was singing without my daily delight in him. The mockingbirds and blue jays, the crows and the doves were charging the air and the nuthatch was still making his funny sound like a rubber duck smashed under foot, but without me to laugh at him.

It seemed to me the town boasted only the sounds of men and women moving mindlessly about in cars, passing me by under the white chenille bedspread, and the church bells kept telling us all its time to move on.  But where was the morning song?  Where was the chickadee wearing his tidy black cap and sounding so sweet like the high-low squeak of an old teeter-totter in need of oiling? And who was going to call up the sun when not a rooster was allowed under this strange town sky?   And so my heart was grieved for the country birds because I didn't hear their familiar, soul-feeding song that assured me that this world in the country was the most beautiful world of all.

Spring quickly turned to summer who yawned slowly into a broadening autumn and nothing much had changed.  I walked in the town yard behind the house where I slept and noted the squirrels jumping from tree to tree. One ambitious fellow carried a discarded apple high into the sugar berry tree and losing his grip, dropped it, landing with a thud just in front of me.   I walked along the city sidewalks, passing the shop that sold cigarettes and tobacco, sometimes stopping on the bridge to watch the fish swim in the creek below, and always slowing to regard the antique roses that hung pink and rosy in the yard of the 1st Baptist church.  Somewhere in my moving about I began to pause at the sound of the church bells tolling out the hour and I began to feel grateful and reposed.

And then one morning, waking under the town roof, under the dark and sleepy town sky,  I heard a sound I hadn't noticed before.  It came from the the south, from the river's edge and broke open my town life with the same sweetness of the country bird's song that once called up the joy of each brand new day.  For just like the birds, the sound rang out from the depths of Truth, Wisdom and from the sure Hope for the future.

  And within the new sound I heard these words:

"Here is the new sound.  Hear the sound for a new season and a new time. Can you not perceive it?"  

And under the town sky a heart now stirs at the sound of the train whistle calling from the river's edge and assuring that my world is the most beautiful of all still.

And surely I am with you always...... Matthew 28:20

Come Home With Me

Come home with me you stout little man with your little brown turban and tiny pointed chin. 

Remind me of mornings draped round with autumn once again.

Come sit now on the windowsill. In the small room you can recount your times in sun, wind, and wild spring rain; of seasons here and gone. I will listen to you and imagine the things you say, the sights you've seen. I will open the window just behind my eyes and see whatever you say.  Give me your visions, show me vignettes of powerful progeny, of mighty oaks and of humble fallen seeds. 

What a firm voice from a such a wee seed.  And such towering tales you tell! 

I passed a respectable grove of oaks in early spring.  Emerald leaves painted deep with dew shimmered in morning light and made the oak forest seem enchanted. Catkins dangled playfully in the breeze from many branches like a gang of little-boy-legs hanging lazily off a dock in summertime. Are they dreaming and bragging of becoming an oak tree too someday; a righteous towering oak?  

Mother Oak and Father Oak have followed me all my days.  Mother, holding the ropes that carried me high on a homemade swing long ago, Father standing firm with his lavish breadth of shade beside my bedroom windows last year.  And just yesterday, standing along the path offering acorns at my feet.  When they whisper, I am comforted and intrigued. When they shout, I laugh and cry and am undone.

So, stay with me little acorn. Stay fall and winter too on the windowsill here in my room. I will listen to you and in the springtime, set you back along the path. 

You and Me

You, God, and Your golden speech are the life of my life.  You are the beautiful liaison between who I am and who I can be, drawing the two towards one another. 

Let it be.

 

 And let us talk over the "you" and the "me"---can I see more clearly the power of "we"?  I'll have no need for hyperbole.  Ever may it be. 



The "you" and the "me" entwined to make "we",  ever may this be. Will You reveal more of this mystery?

















Encompassed in Three, surrounded yet free, the God-head and me--amazingly!