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Eyes To Behold Wonder

“In My Father’s House are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” – John 14:2-6

His extravagant love poured out on all of us. It fairly drowns us with living water; quenching thirst, feeding hunger, dressing wounds, healing our blindness.

Dark, dark trail of sorrow…I have felt consumed by you in the longest nights and palest dawns. In blindness, I have groped, climbing steep mountainsides, searching for footholds and hand grips upward out of the pit of despair.

Awakened one day with the words of a song on my lips…” Through it all, through it all… my eyes are on You…through it all, through it all…my eyes are on You…” Over and over this few lines danced through my mind and heart, bathing me in Light. This simplicity let me SEE the way in the darkness. I determined to take ONE. STEP. AT. A.TIME.

Another moment, I was the walking dead.

The next day, the words in my head…”he who is not busy living is busy dying.”…my dad’s wise saying…My aching, puzzled heart wanting so much to revive the dying soul before me. Me carrying LIFE daily, going to the water hole and trying so hard in my own strength to carry water to the broken before me…

Ohhhh…I have to keep on living and allow the dying to separate from the physical, to release hold of their tight grip on the things they loved…I wanted so much to go with her; to hold her hand on the path; to ease the dreariness of the departure…and she was doing the same for me…

What a strange conundrum…two souls tightly entwined…with history and story and blood between…walking through this garden neither of us is familiar with…discovering hidden treasure and unsightly weeds…navigating in the dark until we both walk into the Light of understanding…

Another night, restless turning, soothed again by a song in my heart…words sung and covering me…old hymns and sweet worship…I woke from this dream place with the verse on my tongue…”I will rejoice over you with singing. I will quiet you with My love.” Zephaniah 3:17

Tears! Oh Father! How I needed this!!! Thank You!!

The morning brings realization…Eyes To Weep…bring forth Eyes To Behold Wonder…

All around me are the things that speak to the character of my mother.

“…a woman who fears the Lord, she will be praised. Let her works praise her in the gates.”

Proverbs 31:30-31

Surely today she will stand at the gates and her works will be evident.

I SEE the wonders. Little birds flitting freely about, eating the seeds she faithfully spread on winter ground. I see the Paperwhite bulbs and daffodils peeking through the cold dirt, carefully planted in years past; her works. I see the lives she has influenced and hugged to her heart. I see out of the ugly-only the lovely.

As her little body shrinks daily, the spirit of Thelma grows larger in anticipation of ascent to freedom, to life forever with Jesus…

February First. Awakened to a verse in my head, and a word from a friend.

”Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him.” Proverb 3

“…only the Refiner knows how long or how high the temperature needs to be to produce that pure gold….one must walk out the process…”

TEARS….Yes Lord I want the gold! Mama would want the gold. Okay…I will walk…

In the greenhouse…looking at the miraculous flower I saved from Mom’s house when she left…enjoying the sweet warmth and fragrance…phone rings…

Seven Thirty. Mama is finally flying free. She is dancing. Her broken little body no longer holds that amazing strength and presence.

And I behold the wonders…

… that have taken me along this path with her. I UNDERSTAND! I can see clearly as I look backward…How funny is that?! I was so blind in the dark, struggling at every single turn, bumping into walls, falling down slippery slopes.

Glancing back now, I see only a well-lit path strewn with flowers and glittering gold and nuggets of truth…surrounded by a great cloud of people gone before and living still, covering me with LOVE.

white bird flying over body of water — Photo by Aenic on Pexels.com

Eyes to Weep

Today has been an especially hard day. A difficult walk.

Standing on a precipice. Holding a hand. Allowing my tears to fall.

The tears have been closely guarded. I have walked the caregiver road and separated my heart from this painful process. I have wondered why my little Mama has been holding on so desperately to this life. Her tiny body is but a whisper of what it was. She is a fragile, porcelain figurine. Her breath comes with difficulty and her eyes are glazed over and fixed on some distant shore. I have maintained, and cared, and provided, and comforted.

But today…Today, I just couldn’t any more.

"Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7

I know that Father God has reminded me, over and over, that I could trust Him and that I could not go with her. That I had to release my hold. I kept telling Him and her that I had let go… But today…

As I entered her room, she stared unseeing with what looked to be fear. Her body was shaking all over and all her muscles were taunt and rigid. She perspired freely yet her skin was cool. I immediately began to sing, songs of heavenly language; and then the Psalms; and then, exhausting all my lullabys, I turned on my worship songs on my phone and then old 40’s tunes. Some of the very songs my dad had sung to soothe her and myself; Nat King Cole crooned in mama’s ear. Her body relaxed.

I watched the weather and the time slide by and knew that I would have to leave before the next wave of thunderstorms came in. I knew the time was there for me to ‘do business’.

I began to pray.

Releasing my mother, asking God to show her how precious she is and has always been to Him, to me, to my brother, to our family, to hundreds of ‘sons and daughters’, I asked God to help her know that I have forgiven her and I hope she has forgiven me for any unkind or thoughtless word or deed. I asked God to show her that she has been a faithful daughter and when she sees Him again that He will say ‘well done good and faithful woman. Welcome home, enter into the Joy of Your Master”. I asked Him to remind her that He has always been with her even when she could not feel it or see it. ALWAYS. That He is a just and Holy King but also a tender and loving Father, a dad, that she can run to and be held on His lap and hugged close to His chest so that she can hear His heart beat.

The tears began to flow. They fell down my cheeks and covered me. I could not stop them. I continued to pray…Lord show my mama that I am going to be okay, that these tears are from pure joy at having had a mom who loved me and taught me how to be a mom and a grandma, who taught me so many things but most especially taught me how to pray. That her faithfulness will bear fruit for generation after generation. That she will be missed but that I would see her again soon in heaven when I get there!

Her hand that held mine now, gripping tightly, relaxed. Her breathing slowed and the tension in her muscles seemed to ease. The wrinkles in her forehead had relaxed and her eyes, open wide before, had gently closed.

I can only hope in this time spent, that all that I felt was true, was really true. That somehow these hours at the gates of heaven have been a sweet walk home. Though I cannot walk her inside, I know that today, I placed her hand into the Hand of the One who would walk her all the way Home.

Eyes To See

“The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body is full of Light…” -Luke 11:34

The enemy does his best to destroy the house. The body that houses the Spirit of God; the home that holds the family; the family that grows the inheritance.

Every attempt is but a stab in the dark. The LIGHT floods in and reveals the futile tactics of a defeated enemy. Known weaknesses are revealed and exploited, yes; but sitting in the aftermath of the attack we can SEE. Sitting in our puddles of regret, we are exhausted, but VICTORIOUS! Forgiveness washes us clean. Grace lifts us up, even as there are further attempts on our lives. Destruction cannot touch us!

Shame. Despair. Disappointment. Apathy. Sorrow. Anger. Pride.

The little thorns in my side that would seek to draw my eyes away from my King and His plan; simply the design of darkness to keep me from beholding the true Victor in the battle.

But TRUTH reigns! I pick myself up and keep going once again on the well-lit path of righteousness.

I have been deceived many times in my life, especially in this last couple years.

Dementia has robbed my mother of her mind. She perhaps knew and fought valiantly to retain control. I, on the other hand, the ‘well educated health care professional’ did not accept it. All her tangled words and imaginary stories were truth to me and I took it all badly. Every assault from one I held dear was a personal attack and wounded my soul and my pride. Every cruel look or caustic comment hurt and robbed me of joy.

I have been accustomed to checking myself constantly with how I come across to others; to a fault I suppose. I could never give myself grace. I always thought something was wrong with me somehow, rather than the other person. The same was true in how I dealt with my mother. Others around me could see so clearly and I walked around punished and shamed.

This was the perfect battleground for the enemy’s ploy to get my eyes off of God and onto MYSELF.

BUT!

I had an epiphany yesterday. A wonderful, life-giving moment.

I picked up a little booklet given me by the Hospice nurse caring for my mom. I had given some of these out before to patients; nothing new; not like I hadn’t read this stuff before. Something prompted me to read it anyway. Maybe there is some piece of wisdom I can glean, or some comfort that I certainly needed. I read:

“This becomes a time of withdrawing from everything outside of one’s self and going inside. Inside where there is sorting out, evaluating one’s self and one’s life. BUT INSIDE THERE IS ONLY ROOM FOR ONE.“

WHAT!?

“With this withdrawal comes less of a need to communicate with others. Words are seen as being connected with the physical life that is being left behind…” (Gone From My Sight-The Dying Experience Barbara Karnes RN)

All that has happened with my mother has been THIS!!

I took everything personally. I was looking at MYSELF when it was the LIGHT I should be looking at. And on top of that; I have been trying to go WITH my Mama as she has retreated inside. Because she has cut me off, I felt rejected. I felt like a bad daughter; like I had done something wrong.

Here has been a great battlefield. And I HAVE WALKED (truth:stumbled) THROUGH IT and I am emerging from the clouds of smoke and dust…

Ah Lord God! How You love me to allow me to struggle and fight because I just have to do it myself… and then You pick me up, brush off my scuffed knees and hold me in Your powerful embrace while I bawl my eyes out…

Thank You!

The enemy WILL NOT rob me of joy. I WILL walk in celebration! The house will NOT be crushed but will flourish with the inheritance of royal blood that courses through her veins.

“We are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.” -Hebrews 10:39

On The Verge

I feel like so many things are on the edge. We are on the verge of…something monumental. We are high above years of the unknown and the unexpected, looking down over a world of possibility!

Opening up before us are choices and plans and decisions to be made. We are not alone in all of this. There is shimmering light guiding our steps. While hope lifts us up out of sticky clay, there are road signs and songs that play with our steps. We bounce with a cadence and clap in joy at all that we see.

I am walking along with music in my head and stars in my eyes and I have not even done anything differently other than to wait.

I stepped out of the shadowland toward those things that I love.

I started a Master Gardener’s Course to obtain that title to contribute to my community with the passion I have for growing things. I have been a midwife for humans for forty years and now I am a midwife for other living things. Bringing forth life from seeds and branches and leaves is a sweet past time. And yet, it is more than that. It is a picture of the gift that God has given all of us. The ability to beget life from our bodies, our hands, our minds. The ability to glorify the Creator. The ability to spread beauty and color and LIFE! I am on the verge of being able to share all that with a vast audience of people.

My mom is on the edge of earth and heaven. She hovers there…waiting. I stand watch with her as she waits. We alternate between sorrow and joy. My selfish desire to hold her to earth…her ambivalence about staying and a muted anticipation about going. It’s a great puzzle we all must face; this wrestling. Can I let loose of her? Will she let loose of me? We stand together at the gate.

My first grand daughter is at the beginning of her adulthood. She makes daily choices as a woman child that are laying the groundwork of the years to come. I watch from afar as this beautiful angel of a girl becomes a woman. She runs along the edge with abandon and joy that is contagious!

My second grand daughter, though half as old as the first, is also growing into a woman, right before my very eyes. She is a gentle, compassionate soul who mothers and nurses those around her. She vacillates between tantrum-like tears and mature decisions and reasonings. I love to listen to her logic. She is a bundle of driven energy ready to ignite.

My first grandson…on the verge of manhood. His voice has a crackling boyness to it alternating with a deep quiet baritone. He still lets himself be hugged, but only tentatively returns it at the risk of revealing his tender heart. This boy delights my Mimi soul! He is SO on the precipice of being grown up. I want to hold him down and keep him small and yet, the wings have already grown quite large so I can only stand back and blow kisses as he jumps and flies…

Our world too, is on the verge of…

We, created of God, are salt and light.

We season our world for good. We bring forth the flavors and beautiful character by how we season the culture around us. Will we season for good? Holding fast to the unmovable truth of the Word? Using the fruits of the Spirit to feed those in our lives? Salt that loses its saltiness is good for nothing. We must be SALTY! Let your seasoning commence!

Will we light up the darkest places with our songs and our poems? Will we spill out the shimmering diamonds that light our path so that others may find their way too? Will we reach out, step out, dance out, paint, laugh and cry for joy so that those in the dark will be encouraged?

I bet most all of you would say a resounding YES! That is who we were made to be!

Torchbearers, trailblazers, stage-takers, beautiful creatives!

So those of you who feel it too; that ‘on the verge-ness’. Come along with me.

I’m going for it!!!

Love, Bets

"You are the salt of the earth..."
"You are the light of the world...Let your light shine before all men in such a way that they may see..." -Matthew 5:14-16

"Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person." - Colossians 4:6

Hope

a cascading waterfalls photo — Photo by Byron Badenhorst on Pexels.com

O Lord! The face of Your earth is so changing! Every minute, as the seasons roll, there are subtle turns of color and land. The trees so full of life one minute, stripped bare the next. Rolling storm with wind and torrents of water shred the branches and trunks of giant splendor. The creek, a still and silent wonderland, is a rambling flood of deep muddy water coursing over the banks and creating new pathways in the pasture.

I am in awe of these physical metamorphosis…every day I walk the land and see…

As I walk into the new year, I am buoyed by some invisible Light that guides my steps. I am filled with a Hope that has risen from a dark pile of ashes and tears. It is beyond anticipation or plans or resolutions. It is something that I am unfamiliar with embracing. it is not a wish or sprinkle of fairy dust. It is a literal blessed assurance. It is not based on my own strength or the world’s around me. It is not moved by circumstance or uncertainty.

My Hope is in Jesus.

Hope does not disappoint. It is unchanging. Unlike that creek or the trees or the land or the mess around my house or even the precious words of my people.

I read this morning in Romans chapter 5, “…We exult in HOPE of the glory of God!’ AND “…tribulation brings perseverance… brings proven character…brings HOPE…”

I don’t know about you, but I would LOVE to see the glory of God!!! I have no idea what that looks like even, but I imagine a lot of LIGHT and UNDERSTANDING!!!

“…And HOPE does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us!” Romans 5:5

So much of my thinking has dwelt on a verse that says, “hope deferred makes the heart sick” and another, “Without vision the people perish.” I have been perishing and sick with sadness.

In truth HOPE is so much more than such dark thought. I have had a rough couple of years that have reduced me to the ‘navel gazing’ introspective melancholia; Real reasons to be sad and situations that bring heavy grief. Those things have pushed me and pulled me and molded me and shaped me. Like that creek that has overflowed her banks and produced mud everywhere, crushing the bushes and trees and displacing all the little animals living there I am a messy piece of artwork. There is clay everywhere in the Potter’s workshop and much of it is unusable but too, there are large pieces of beauty that are emerging up out of the craziness of the studio…

So here I go…walking slowly into 2023, casting aside the grief and worry and fear that so easily entangles me daily. I am clinging to the HOPE of my calling…the Upward CALL of God in Christ Jesus!!!!

This Time of Year

It’s December.

I get busier in my head in December. I make more plans. I spend more money. I bake more. I visit more. I get overwhelmed more. I realize my need more. In December.

The celebrations of a year, good or bad, are had. The celebrations of lives and of bounty are had. Reminiscence abounds. Sharp clear pictures of my childhood pop into my thoughts all day long.

When I was a young mother, you would often have found me up at all hours of the night sewing or putting finishing touches on presents. When I went to work at night I would often bring children’s costumes for Christmas programs with me to sew on breaks. I ran myself ragged much of the month of December, “being present” as much as I could. With only twenty-four hours to a day, I tried to squeeze a good twenty-eight hours out of them…

Now on the other side of mothering, well into the Mimi stage and retirement phase, I can look with some thoughtful eyes at how I ‘did’ December; and how I want to ‘do’ December.

Peace on Earth is real. I can rest. I can go to bed at 10 pm and get a good nights sleep. I can sew if I want, during the day. I can wrap presents when I buy them so I don’t have a mountain to do on December 24th OR just not wrap them at all… I can actually mail out Christmas cards BEFORE Christmas or I can send New Year’s cards and feel okay about it. So many years of guilt with sending greetings late… WHERE does that even come from!? NOT from the Savior of the world!

Christmas is the celebration of Jesus. I lose sight of this in all the busyness of December. My husband, who is very unencumbered by the hustle and bustle, constantly reminds me of this truth. The celebration of the GIFT given to us is what Christmas is really about. Everything in the celebration points to Him. So many of my years have been spent whirling around accomplishing much and enjoying little. When called to be still; at school Christmas programs, watching a Christmas movie, driving through beautifully lit neighborhoods enjoying Christmas lights, hearing Silent Night sung on the lips of my sweet babies; I felt such a sweet relief. How little I appreciated in that time of my life. I didn’t know then what I know now.

How did I get so far off track in my celebrating through the years? My barometer for ‘off track’ was my stress and exhaustion level.

In this season, I am learning to enjoy the stillness, to listen quietly, to be unshackled by the ‘have to’s and ‘should do’s’. This is not an easy thing for one inclined to fill her days with flurries of movement and tasks. But such a worthy thing. It is worthy to pursue.

So, yes, I will pursue peace. I will celebrate Jesus. I will give. I will dance. I will reminisce. I will cook. I will write cards. I will rejoice in all the beauty and the life around me and share it with the people in my life. And I will rest. In December and every other month of the year…

Merry Christmas my friends and a Joyous New Year.

Love Betsy

“My peace I leave you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid…” John 14:27

this winged journey

I write out of the day. the emotions, the thoughts, the convictions, the . moments, the mess, the glory. All of it comes to the surface and tumbles out in poetry and pain. The words rush forth and establish themselves in black and white. The passion and the raw truth is a bit much at times. the release and the permission I feel allows for their expression.

If I wait, if I pause and consider their effect, they recede and hide, buried once again. The rich goodness and grace, their purpose and potential fruit borne of their sowing, then, must wait.

One of my precious cousins stopped me recently, looked into my eyes and asked me how I was doing. Then she grabbed me and asked again, “No, HOW are you doing, really?” She said she had read some of my writing and was concerned for me.

The query made me stop and think. I had learned in a writing course that one should not write in the midst of great trial and tribulation. At least not write for publication. They recommended that a writer should work through the ‘stuff’ and write out of the healing and the victory of those times. My spirit balked at this instruction. Perhaps there is indeed wisdom in not dragging one’s readers through the mud. My cousin’s sweet gentle question, filled with compassion, reminded me that other people reading about my pain and weary travels may feel the pain as well; and if they never hear the outcome of the trials, they may miss the victories.

Is personal pain too much to share in a public venue?

Is the human experience to be hidden or tucked away until it is properly polished?

Is confession of sin to be secret?

Is faith too private to be loud?

These questions I pose in public, are to be answered in the quiet of your own hearts.

For me, this scrawl is an expression of what a powerful and Living God is saying to me. It is the meanderings of a road traveled. The struggles are real with a victory at their end.

The battles are a part of the greater war that, like it or not, we are all involved in.

The good news is that we know the outcome. We Win!

Jesus gave of Himself as a sacrifice that pays once and for all a debt we owed. The enemy of our souls has been defeated. He cannot succeed.

Yep. We still wear skin and are made up of blood and bone; but within us lives a heart that is mighty and REDEEMED!

So, road that we travel with sticker bushes and barbed wire, with thunder and lightening and floods and fears, deserves to be spoken about as past tense and no longer- because we walk out of it into the LIGHT. And truth is, our feet are headed for streets of gold.

I cannot apologize for the empathetic pain that is felt as these words are read. I can only ask forgiveness for taking so long to get to the point.

Believe me, amidst the tears and the ramblings, is an abiding sense of humor. I laugh at my own humanity and I am certain that God laughs with me. It is a holy laughter of pure love and enjoyment as this child dances and falls, tripping over my own feet and then reaching out to grab hold of that Mighty Hand held out to help me up. Once I am up, I am once again that winged warrior taking off for greater heights.

Mud Pot

When I was a little girl…I LOVED, absolutely loved, playing in the mud. Much of my time was spent making pots and cakes and unusual little houses decorated with flowers and grasses. I am quite sure, like my granddaughter in the above photo, I was immersed in the material head to toe.

My little treasures built with painstaking care, would sit on a shelf to dry. They were beautiful until the light of the very next day consumed them and they crumbled to pieces. I would weep in sadness, blame my brothers for their demise and generally grieve over their loss until I was distracted with yet another pot to build.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a woman, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” -1 Corinthians 13:11

little girl with chalk drawing on stone in park — Photo by Allan Mas on Pexels.com

The pots I built as a child were temporary expressions of creativity. Now I would look at their crude construction with amusement, but then, they were masterpieces of my ability and all that I knew how to do.

The age of building mud pots was critical to my development and a fond and distant memory. There have been times though, like now, when I find myself back to sitting in the mud and spending hours molding little mud objects.

I am convinced that there is no ‘judgement’ of this practice. The mud creations are necessary and inherent in our growth as human beings. I believe that God the Father looks upon this fondly and encourages us (me) to stretch and experiment and try the steps of the dance, over and over and over again. How kind and how good is it that we can rest in the becoming and not feel ‘less than’ or abnormal.

I confess that I have judged myself. I have felt incapable and unworthy and cast aside and then, self-condemned to a life of mediocre. That is NOT at all what the Creator had in mind for Betsy.

The mud pots were simply a starting point. May I suggest that they could also be a returning place? Might it be when Jesus told His disciples not to interfere with the children flooding in to see Him and the Word he gave that one must come as a child to enter the Kingdom, that He was speaking of this component? Going back, on occasion, with a pure heart, a willing spirit, a trusting attitude, to that place where the little pots were built by chubby hands and such care was given in the simplest of activities.

I recall as a young teenager, sitting on a riverside with my friend building drip castles for hours. It was a time of rapid mental, spiritual and physical change in my life. Those drip castles were SO important. I can still remember the joy at their creation, the rest that I felt; the camaraderie with a like-minded friend.

Our lives are but a candle in a wide expanse of time. Let us all burn brightly! Let us not judge ourselves with such ferocious expectations that leave out the joy and the dance.

I stand at this place, feeling the depths of my soul, stretching and shrinking. Ebbs and flows…

I give myself permission to play in the mud. I feel God’s favor on me. I feel His Love. It makes me cry. It makes me laugh. It makes me dance!

“And calling to Him a child, He put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you TURN and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 18: 1-3

Love, Betsy

Another Layer Peeled

“All things become visible when they are exposed by the Light…” Ezekiel 1:28

It has been awhile, my friends. I am so sorry to have kept you waiting.

I have been away. I have been following the Potter’s leading, journeying far into the night, over mountain paths and desert sands. I have been looking up into the clouds and around corners, deep into the past. It has been both profitable… and disabling. Yet, I sense that, as I take a deep breath and begin…I know not what…out will come the color and the light and the words that will encourage our hearts and set us sail once again.

A layer of time has been pulled back and revealed me wanting of a healing touch by my Creator. I have been hiding a wound that has not served me well. I hid it, fed it, nurtured and protected it and have suddenly discovered that it has done me no good and has crippled a part of me. I don’t really know its name. I just know what it looks like and how it acts.

At some point in time, I learned to ‘be a good girl’, at all costs. I internalized this as part of my religion. IF I was a ‘good girl’, I would go to heaven. IF I was a’good girl’, I would be rewarded. The next thing I learned was what to ‘do’ to be a ‘good girl’. I had a whole list of things that won approval from my parents, teachers and friends. Usually the list was helping, serving, doing. I became the best at everything I did in order to win attention and gain a pat on the back. I learned to put my desires and needs on the back burner.

As I have grown older, I am still performing for the audience, still DOING incessantly to gain the approval of someone. There may not be a ‘someone’ at all, but I keep going at a frantic pace, stopping barely to gain a breath. I have to finish the jobs that never go away.

Now, the winning of approval is completely subconscious. I don’t even know that I am doing it until someone questions my ability…then I am defensive and protective of what I am doing.

Such a weird and silly thing to obsess over.

Just let it go, sis.

You are accepted no matter what or how you do. It has nothing to do with how much or how well you do. You are loved simply because you are YOU.

WAIT! What!?

Yep. The Creator made you and likes you. You do NOT have to prove anything to Him. And you do not have to prove anything to the humans around you either. You are loved unconditionally.

This earth shattering truth opens up hope in me. It is a door into a dozen other things that I have to look at. I have been ignoring these things for years and here they are hidden under this dark calloused wound.

I find that in spite of the ugliness of this discovery, I am looking forward to what I am about to see.

So here, at this road, I receive the healing that the Creator has to offer me. I give Him this lie I believed when I was just a little girl. I did not know there was a choice then; but I do now.

Thank You God for loving me just the way I am and for setting me free of this chain that I unknowingly wrapped around my own feet. I trust that You will show me the way along this new path I am walking.

Here we go!!!! Step by step, layer by layer. Into the Potter’s House to learn what the pots are made of. To learn what they are for.

"Make me to know Your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths..."- Psalm 25:4

In The Garden

brown flower in the middle of green plants

Garden full of grass and weeds tempts me to plow it over or mow it down…but then, I would miss the hidden treasures; the tiny little basil plants growing under graying zinnias, the volunteer tomato plants, the wild flowers whose seeds I planted back in the spring…I thought they had been lost.

These little gifts that survive beneath the heavy cover of weeds and overgrowing melon plants are the reason I do not listen to the temptation to stop the backbreaking weed-by-weed pulling and go get the big John Deere tractor to mow and till it all under. I love those surprises. I adore the hardy little plants that are ALIVE against all odds. They speak to me somehow.

How like our Heavenly Father this is! He has the power to drive the John Deere over the mess we’ve made. He can plow it all up and start again. He could stop the helter skelter growth of dangerous and invasive thinking. He could crush evil in its steps. All the wicked weeds choking out the good and intentional plants could be wiped away in moments. And yet…He pauses. He waits.

He puts farmers in the fields. He asks tenacious gardeners to patiently pull one weed at a time out by its roots. He puts ideas into our hearts for growth and expansion and beauty. He works with us, not against us, in the quest to grow life, to fertilize soils, to use our landscape for our good.

How is it that this God is so long-suffering that He would go to these lengths when we are struggling and bent over in labor over the very thing that He loves? This Creation, He said, is GOOD. He asked His people to care for her and He comes along side the work to bring forth amazing Grace.

The little discoveries along the way are worth every minute of sweat out in the hot and brutal sun. The ones that are saved from the tangle of weeds are a rich and unexpected gift!

Thank You Lord for giving me this job. I am honored to work amongst the weeds and the dirt of this life.

"Let the wheat and the weeds both grow together until harvest. Then I will tell the harvest workers to pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them, and then gather the wheat and put it in My barn." -Matthew 13:30