wonder – Page 4 – Chasing Joy

Category: wonder (page 4 of 5)

An Unexpected Journey-headed south

August 4, 2014 / mel / 1 Comment

mimi colorado

the heat of the sun soaks into the broken van. stuck there at exit 49 along the Colorado River and the kids aren’t quite sure what to think or say-so they sit there with big eyes and quick obedience. i cry and pray that the tears will stop once the phone does find a signal and i am required to communicate clearly where we are and what we need. i drain the car battery trying to keep the dying phone alive. my phone’s charge lasts long enough to connect with roadside assistance, and there is nothing left to connect with my husband who is all the way back home.

Howard the tow-truck driver is on his way. the kids help me pack up the car and get ready. i tear my favorite pants on the guard-rail. i answer their questions as best i can; -the tow truck is coming-he will get us to the nearest city. some Dear Ones –who were adventuring themselves and aren’t too far away-are coming to help too.

after dumping the van-Howard drops us off at a dairy queen to await our coming help. i breathe deep at the sight of the elementary school across the way. we get our ice cream and walk over to wait.

and i am thankful for the elementary school playground and ice cream. and for Howard who was so very kind. thankful for the exit 49 so i could be off the highway. thankful for the husband on the phone who is so very kind too. thankful for the finding of a hotel-a fancy shmancy hotel-for cheap. the term Travel Mercies is being redefined.

still, here i am

with all these decisions to make. lots and lots of decisions. i have this complex and difficult history with decisions that adds to the struggle. i’ve begun to understand this about me.

i wake in the night to hear her tossing and turning. the thermometer reads 102. she says her throat hurts bad. i’ve nothing to offer for relief and no transportation. i do what i can to make her comfortable, taking her cot and giving her the bed. the boys sleep soundly through it all, it’s all a grand adventure and these detours are nothing to lose sleep over- to them.

i flex and make a new plan for tomorrow;

pick up rental go to urgent care
pick up rental
stop at transmission shop.
sell car to the junk yard.
get back on our way? or just go home?

we all decide that continuing on is the wise choice. there are cousins to connect with and a new cousin to meet. the kids have no idea how hard this all is. all these decisions made with limited information and limited sleep. they are good sports and enjoy themselves regardless of what i choose.

the sick one spends her days in bed while the boys and their cousin play in their fort. grandma stays behind, because though my sick one is 14, i won’t let her be sick on her own. we girls, as we’ve been called for years and years, spend rare hours together. the ruts in the road are well worn and try as we might to forge a new path these ruts are deep, compounded by distance and lack of time for tending. i realize this as we have time for talking, brief moments to share from our hearts. i tread lightly-testing the ground as i go to see if it is safe to move forward. sometimes it is and i share deeply. sometimes it isn’t and i hold back. sometimes i forget about the testing and self-editing and realize after the places that cause discomfort for them and for me. there are moments to ponder that these are the ones who have known me the longest….yet, in some ways, hardly know me at all.

my prayers are reduced to groaning. i’m losing my footing and beginning to forget what i know. i’m spending time with family by day and tending to a sick teenager by night. the fog creeps in and my body shifts into survival, physical and spiritual fatigue takes its toll. the One who knows and understands everything, He breaks through the fog and gives strength to keep going and keep loving and keep engaging. to listen and seek to know, without seeking to be known.

“in times like these,” He encourages, “it’s no longer about being in the word every day. it’s about living the word every moment.”

still, despite the personal victory won of remaining engaged, other hopes fade and begin to die out.

i take a risk and share with a friend;

“it’s just hard to see any hope of anything else but this ever.”

he replies;

“Don’t give up hope. God is big.”

as our travel shifts to the North, my eyes and heart begin to take in hope. those words spoken by a fellow traveler are life giving. the fog lifts if only a little. my eyes catch glimpses of hope in unexpected places. i grab the camera and my pen, because i want to remember both the bigness of my God and the way He speaks.

“I AM your feast, in the presence of enemies...” (via jon foreman/psalm 23)

a tree-growing out of the rock. planted and tended and grown by the Only One who could.

words that press in just the right places:

Oh child, I have searched and known you!
I know when you sit down and when you rise up;
I discern your thoughts from afar.
I search out your path and your lying down and Am acquainted with all your ways.
Even before a word is on your tongue, behold, I the LORD, know it altogether.
I hem you in, behind and before and I lay My Hand upon you.
(psalm 139)

He is big.
Bask in the hope of His Bigness
Behold it.
Bask in the Wonder of being searched, known, and treasured.

and then, seriously, i’m walking under Mt. Rushmore’s hall of flags and i look up and see this!! It’s Rhode Island’s flag, in case anyone wants to know. the 13th state. Admitted to the Union in 1790

“And this hope is an anchor to our very soul, because He who promised is Faithful.”

Things i learned this summer

August 1, 2014 / mel / 0 Comments

slipping in here for a linkup with Chatting at the Sky. Monday i will return with ‘An Unexpected Journey’ as promised.

Here are 11 things i learned this summer:

1. This 190something train depot will be moved to another town to serve as a gift shop for their railway museum. Apparently the current railway company planned to tear it down, but someone in the know found this other solution. i am sad. this is one block from our house and i happen to like the building. now all we will have at this intersection will be train tracks and fields of gophers and goat-heads.

2. After 15 years out of the workforce, creating a resume, introduction letter, and appearing for an interview would be a process worth going through. not getting the job will be a nice souvenir.

3. just ten years ago taking your phone with you to dinner was not so common.

4. taking my getsalongwithallthepeopleandnoneofthedogs Saint Bernard camping and to a baseball tournament would prove good for everyone. She got more practice with being out and about and i got better at the whole anxiety thing (she did attack a little dog once and it cost thousands of dollars to save little dog’s life so i’d been avoiding public places with her)

5. there was a scandal over cheating and test scores in Georgia. i find all of the information fascinating and am still taking in the tragedy these tests are subjecting our kids and teachers with.

6. in South Dakota there is this tower that looks like a castle and it is only a 3 mile hike to get there and totally worth it even if you happen to be sick at the time.

7. there is a Dairy Queen nicely placed next to an elementary school (playground!) near a transmission shop somewhere in Grand Junction, CO. Howard the tow-truck driver will know this, but what he doesn’t know is that it will be just the mercy and therapy we all need and i will be strengthened for what is ahead and overcome with gratitude.

8. stressful travels will all be worth it when you see your boys in their ‘discovered’ fort near grandma’s house and hear one declare to his cousin; “this is way better than screen time!”

9. the nester finds feathers.

10. i don’t have to have previous knowledge about numbers 6-8-God will show them to me moment by moment, showing Himself to me in the moment by moments. i find feathers too….just in a different form. this summer i learned how to find the feathers.

11. making a deal with my son that he could earn 5 minutes of screen time for every 10 minutes of reading a book that is not Calvin and Hobbes would lead to this every. single. morning. Note his cup of tea. he would thoughtfully fix me a cup too and place it next to my bed. unfortunately, by the time i awoke it would be cold because he was waking at 6 (!) and i …..wasn’t. i will miss this summer morning routine.

An Unexpected Journey-prologue

July 14, 2014 / mel / 0 Comments

“Perhaps the most beautiful work you can do today is to begin to accept your creative inheritance from God and learn to become yourself in the presence of others, moving into the world as the person you fully are no matter where you are, who you’re with, or what’s gone wrong.”

-The Art of Your Work by Emily P. Freeman

i didn’t intend to take a blogging break this summer. and i didn’t see the light posts and potholes along the path of moving into the world in this way that Emily describes. but light posts and potholes they were, and as i found myself unexpectedly spending a week without internet or phone but with my laptop and time, i began to see it. i began to see the unexpected journey i was being taken on and the threads of freedom that would weave themselves into that ‘beautiful work of accepting my creative inheritance and learning to become myself in the presence of others.’

and so at hand is the challenging task of putting it all into words that make sense for a reader who is not me, written by a writer who is me. i’ll be back here with those words on Monday, August 4^th. till then, may the journey you find yourself on be full of unexpected joys along the way.

for when i forget what i know

May 6, 2014 / mel / 0 Comments

For you created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

He came to her as she meditated on His knitting. He came to her with joy and assurance as her belly grew. as she and her first born looked at all the photos of the stages of a baby being formed-and marveled at His work.

until……

“i wish i wasn’t me” -zeke age 5

what about when the knitting needles missed a stitch along the way and one is left with a broken body?
when your 5 year old is speaking words that sound too much like suicide?
what then?

He came to her with His words

“not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord Almighty” -zech 4:6

and He came to her with a song in the dark hours of those hard days
(because He knows how the songs work for her)

the Love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell….

and she believed Him.

and He strengthened her.

and He made her to believe His love was in fact greater and deeper and beyond the body that was broken.

and it never occurred to her
not even once
to pray for healing.

last night it occurred to me, that it had never occurred to me to pray for healing.

and now that it had
would i pray?
knowing all the ways we’ve known His deep and great love
as a result of
this broken body that belongs to zeke?

he’s 11 now.

and weeks before this most recent insight, i was given another.

how of all my children-this one has the most freedom to be fully himself in the presence of others.

and i’ve pondered that for a while-perplexed a bit at how in the world that came to be true? and how in the world can i help my other 2 along the path?

but last night as i listened to the question that formed (inside my head) with it’s accusations; “why did you not ever pray for him to be healed? do you not have faith? even through a year of studying all the ways Jesus healed in the book of Matthew-it didn’t come to mind then. why? what does that say about you? what does that say about your love for your son?”

there are a lot of lies mixed in with doubts mixed in with perplexity at the initial questions. and as i sat there clueless. the piano began to play the familiar words that would come to me all those years ago…

oh Love of God
how great and pure
how measureless and strong….

Who is this God? who hears the thought churning inside my head-that no one else hears? who moves the hands of a pianist to play the very words that my heart understands. words that only He could know would soothe and remind of what is true?

the longer i live, the less answers i have.

but one thing i have come to understand is this

God’s love is real.
it’s measureless
it’s strong.
it’s constant
and is not expressed in the way that i think so much of the time.

i praise You because zeke is fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
i know that full well.

my frame was not hidden from you
when i was made in the secret place.
all the days ordained for me
were written in Your book
before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them! -psalm 139

(please don’t misunderstand, i in no way mean to imply whether or not prayer for healing is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. i still don’t know why we never thought to pray for healing for my zeke, or if we will begin praying for this. it’s not really about that. this post is about being settled -yet again- in the midst of doubt and confusion-and attack. being settled-yet again- into the love of a Father who knows everything.)

dying for me

April 19, 2014 / mel

grasping

March 7, 2014 / mel / 0 Comments

wonderstruck without words
at who You are
look up, You beckon
look up at the vastness
and remember the sky
and the way it reminds you of the vastness
of My love for you.
a knowing….that surpasses knowledge. (what does that even mean??)

And i pray that you, being rooted and established

in love,

may have power…. to grasp

how wide and long and high and deep is

the love of Christ

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge

that you may be filled to the measure of all

the fullness of God.

Now,

to Him who is able

to do immeasurably more

than all we ask or imagine,

according to His power that is at work within us,

to Him

be glory for ever and ever!

Amen. ephesians 3:17-21

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

February 28, 2014 / mel / 0 Comments

For this is God, our God forever and ever;
He will be our guide even to death.
O LORD, You are my God. I will exalt You,
I will praise Your name,
for You have done wonderful things;
Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
psalm 48:14, isaiah 25:1

May this weekend bring you more and more of God Himself!

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

the Wondering. "Who do You say that i am?"

February 1, 2014 / mel / 0 Comments

pay attention to your tears. emily freeman.

Behold His glory. Theaomai His glory. Theaomai from thaomai – “to wonder.” Not a glancing – but a gazing…. –Ann Voskamp

he sits bent over with tears over the “D”. i tell him; “that D doesn?t define you.”

i stare at the official box checked on the very official form delivered by the very official officer; “public nuisance”. and i look down at the four paws in the air with the big belly waiting to be petted. and i tell her; “they say you are a nuisance, if only they could see you for who you really are.”

identity.

Matthew 16 and 17

Jesus; “Who do the people say that I am?”

Disciples; “John the Baptist, Elijah, a prophet.”

Jesus; “Who do you say that I am?”

They head up a mountain, Peter, Jesus, and the brothers James and John. Moses and Elijah join them.

This is my Son, Whom I love, with Him I am well pleased, Listen to Him!

identity.

this morning the Lord turned the question around…..

because i’ve spent enough time thinking on who the people say that i am

God, who do You say that i am?

identity

tho i can?t actually head up a mountain today…i can lock myself in my room. i can shut the door. and….

Listen to Him…..
behold His glory…..
gaze…..
and be struck

identity

oh the Wonder of it all

oh the Wonder

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

the wonder of both grace and peace in abundance

January 28, 2014 / mel / 0 Comments

Man’s love of truth is such that when he loves something that is not the truth, he pretends to himself that what he loves is the truth, and because he hates to be proved wrong, he will not allow himself to be convinced he is deceiving himself. So he hates the real truth for the sake of what he takes to his heart in its place. -Augustine as quoted by Os Guinness in Time for Truth p.117

“pay attention to your tears” -emily freeman found in her book a million little ways.

if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. -Jesus Matthew 16:24

the pain of rejection stings. and of being found out.

it stings because this is still my life. my identity. i am still taking cues from outside assessments of me.

this is my cross. that i must daily take up. it’s dying to the getting of my identity from this world.

but Jesus has said; “whoever wants to save his self will lose his self, but whomever loses his self will find his self.” self. psyche. identity.

it comes in all sorts of pretty packages. like bible study, or social justice, or ‘works God has prepared beforehand.’ these were never meant to be my identity. never.

and my heart is deceitful above all things, who can fathom it? it self-protects. when threatened, it fights back. hard.

but Jesus has said; “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

the truth is, i am selfish. materialistic. idolatrous. etc. etc. etc. in its mechanism to self-protect my heart will reject this and fight with every argument and reason that these things are not true. but they are. i am more sinful than i dared to imagine …..

and more loved than i dared to hope for.

when i know this love. really know it. it melts me. and it does set me free….

to be found out. to be rejected.
to die.

so that i can be resurrected to real life. real self. real identity.
taking the Gospel into the corners.
daily.

maybe this is the ‘mid-life crisis’. (those aren’t really the right words, but i don’t know what else to call it) the realizing the name i’ve not made for myself and the wondering what i now want to do about that. the investing of years of unknown little deaths…and just wanting them to be known and valued. the being worn down by all the messages of what truly makes up a life well lived.

now that i ponder these things, what i want more than anything is to live

hating the real lie for the sake of what i take to my heart in its place…..

and in its place…

could it be joy? …..overwhelming joy?

in an identity found and dependant on

the amazing grace
and greatness of my God.

is this what it means to have grace and peace in abundance? -2 peter 1:2; i mean when i am aware of the abundance of grace needed, it’s usually because of the abundance of screw-ups, and so typically an abundance of peace isn’t what goes with that….

here’s my heart Lord. speak what is true.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

the wonder of a life hid

January 26, 2014 / mel / 0 Comments

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart;
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
Praise the One,
Risen Son of God!

Behold Him there, the Risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am,
The King of glory and of grace!
One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood

My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God
With Christ, my Savior and my God

Before the Throne original words by Chartie L. Bancroft. I happen to like this rendition musically. Photos taken in Uganda in 2010. in that last photo if you look closely you can see the lions in the bottom left hidden behind the grass. we almost didn’t see them and stop because we were watching the elephants.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.