five minute friday: born

Fresh starts and new beginnings flood the air as spring begins to turn into summer. Hope permeates places that have been in desperate need of it, even places within me.

The newborn ducklings waddling across the street as I am forced to wait for their passing. The weight of newly picked tomatoes, jalapeños and onions from the garden fill my basket. Early morning light streams through the windows brighter now as spring takes its full affect.

Birth is the place where hope shows it's finest colors. Every spring the earth is freshly born from it's winter death. A new birth of blooming flowers, budding fruits and baby birds returns after the harshness of frost. 

The newness gives hope even to my own weary soul after these months of shelter at home, as a seed buried underground all winter starting to emerge. Slowly but surely, I can feel the hopefulness of the months ahead returning. Tentative plans, possible outings and the prospect of a visit provide a twinkle of the hope of what's to come. 

My own soul needs the hope that new beginnings provide, even as I take up the mantle of "writer" once again, under the Lord's direction. Not knowing where the birth of a journey will lead, yet the first tentative steps in the right direction give glimpses of adventure ahead. Just start small.

Every birth began small, microscopic even. A fusing together of a hope with a dream that was planted deep within. In the fullness of time it comes forth. 

Whether in the hope of what's ahead this summer as the world emerges into it's new normal. Whether it is the seed of a dream within your own heart. What is the inkling within you that is beginning to come forth? How might you offer the expectation of that birth into the hands of the Lord and follow His lead? He is the Master of new birth.

"In His great mercy, He has given us new birth into living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

1 Peter 1:3

late night

What is it about the deep hours of the night that cause an introspection so dramatic it often beckons the exhausted to rise?
My eyes pop open. 3am. Hmm, must be the tacos I ate for dinner or that late night glass of wine. In an attempt to ignore it, I roll over only then to come face to face with my mind's closet.
What shall we ponder tonight?
How about pulling out the twins of Guilt and Grief that hide in the shadows of my heart until those moments when the darkness within matches the darkness around me and all I have to distract me is the racing colors of my mind? Seems like the best option tonight.
Guilt, every place I failed as a mother, I have twenty years of fodder to offer for that one. It compels me to text an apology to my son that is such a small nonsense yet my heart wants to say, sorry for every failure and place where I was impatient and inconsistent in my parenting. For the last 20 years. Sorry for being a sinner, sweet son of mine. 
Grief, the passing of my dear Dad, a loss I can't even yet seem to get my mind around, even after 18 months. When will the memories, all intermingling good with the hard and the pain, stop pounding on my heart like a hammer. At times it slows and nearly stills but in the dark hours it rises at times to a deafening toll. Trying hard to remember his voice, the feeling of his hand or the last time I hugged him hard before leaving to return home thinking we had more time. Trying to capture in my mind as clearly as possible those sweet memories of conversations, mannerisms and habits. Pushing aside the painful moments I was cross or impatient, or even that last good-bye laced with hope.
Anxiety and Fear would join the group soon if I didn't do something fast. So on this night, like I do far too few times, I wrestled with my torn thoughts and saddening images and began to repeat the healing words I know well.
"Trust in the LORD with all your and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your steps." (Proverbs 3:4-6)
The familiar proverb rolled off my heart with ease as they found their worn tracks in my heart. With every repetition of the verses, the words grew with intensity and began to push away the Guilt and Grief that had begun to settle into their grooves for the night. Before long sleep clouded my thinking and my mind relaxed with the rest of my body.
What is your mantra, of sorts, to meditate on, somewhere to draw your mind back to when it is being bullied by the deep hours of the dark? For me it works best to not be the same as my memory verse but rather an old verse that is more like a familiar blanket to wrap around my mind with ease. It is life to me in the darkness.

speaking fear or faith

Psalm 34:1-3
In moments of great fear, we respond in ways that might not be characteristic of us. Fear brings out deep places within us that we might not even know are there. Whether fear comes from a diagnosis, a pandemic, or even something that has played out a "what if story" in our minds.
As I was coming home from work one afternoon, I noticed what seemed to be a small alligator about 10 feet from me. I immediately panicked. I did what any freaked out person would do, called Animal Control. I also called my husband who raced home from work only to discover, in my embarrassment, that it was *toy* alligator. Thankfully Animal Control had not yet arrived to rescue me from the plastic squeak toy, so my dignity was spared when we called them off.
Though most fear is unreasonable or even unnecessary, it is often unwilling to obey our reasoning until proven otherwise.
David felt great fear in 1 Samuel 21 when faced with the king of Gath. He thought surely he was good as dead. The king was far more frightening than a toy alligator. Regardless that David had single-handedly killed the giant everyone else had feared not long ago, yet in this moment his fear wasn't listening to the voice of truth from the past. That was then, this is now. In the moment
David reacted as he never had before. He didn't take up the sword, pray to God and fight. No, this time, he turned his behavior into that of a madman it tells us in verse 13. And even in his odd response, he is spared by the evil king. On the other side of the fear, David recognizes God's sovereign hand and thus Psalm 34 is penned.
The Psalm opens with praise. "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth," says the opening line.
Blessing here is from the original word also meaning to kneel. The psalmist takes the right position before his God and his mouth offers praise.  He came through a difficult season or fearful trial and his first response is praise to God.
David goes on to say, "My soul makes its boast in the LORD, let the humble hear and be glad."
The psalmist's soul does not pride himself in himself and his own ingenuity rather he makes his boasting in Yahweh, the covenant keeping God who protected him from what he greatly feared; in this moment it was death. He speaks of it so others hear what happened and it is a testimony of what God did, not what man did.
Finally in verse 3 we see the invitation to others, "Oh magnify the LORD with me, let us exalt his name together!"
Misery loves company, but so does praise and gratitude. When we speak complaints and irritations and pessimism, we invite others to the same. But when we speak praise and gratitude and marvel over what God has done in our lives, we also invite others to the same.
So today, whether we are facing a real fear or a perceived fear. Will we remember the One Who is sovereign? When we have come through the trial what are you and I going to speak of? Are we going to praise God with the same passion that we used when we begged for safety or release from fears? When He shows Himself to be God in and through our trial will we speak of all *we* did and how wise we were or will we point to the life giving grace of God? Will we speak fear or faith?

five minute friday: forward

2019 crept in without much fan fare as we huddled close in the wake of the storm that had swept us into an unfamiliar town and a painful season of grief over the greatest loss we had felt to date. But 2019 brought healing in the form of a family vacation brimming with excitement, joy and bonding followed by the sweetest 20th anniversary trip to Jamaica we could have ever imagined. As the year closed with new traditions and remembrances, we could feel the healing that was being worked into the fabric of our lives.
Enter 2020. As my oldest celebrated big at The Passion Conference, we no sooner toasted the new year that we ran to the shore to make the first day count with the salt water spraying its foam confetti all around us. New hopes, fresh starts, a new decade ahead with such promise. What could go wrong?
***

I'll spare you the rehashing of these last three months having not been what we expected. An understatement.
Even if you have been living under a rock, you certainly have felt the effects of this season. But where do we go from here. How do we possibly move forward?
***

Abraham lived a life of forward going. He certainly had no idea things would work out as they did. He just trusted the One from whose hand it came. How could he trust so fully?
I think and overthink until I have successfully stirred my own anxious thoughts and grown my own false stories from those seeds. From that patch of weeds I then end up drawing others around me into second guessing too.

Did God really say..? How can you be so sure? What if...? Or what if...? 

Not Abraham. Hebrews 11:10 tells us "he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." He wasn't looking mourning the end of previous joys. He wasn't looking to Sarah for clarity. He wasn't even spending time, it seems, hemming and hawing over the pros and cons list. Nope. Hebrews 11:8 says, "by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going."

We don't yet know where we are going from here. We don't yet know the world we will live in as we step out of our homes from this shelter in place. But God does. The city Abraham's eyes were fixed on was not of this world. He was looking towards the City he was made for, the Celestial City, designed and built by God.  So can we. This world and all it's viruses, hornets, earthquakes, and fires will pass away. But the City God is preparing for those who are His is eternal. What if the story we told ourselves was True? What if we fixed our eyes on the City we are made for?

a new perspective

Perspective is everything. Isn't it?
When we see from the perspective before us, we will think from our vantage point and thus live out of that. What other perspective is there? I only have but my own eyes and story from which to proceed so how can I shift to any other perspective? Sometimes that shift requires a reframing of our mind, a whole new focus.
When my son, who is a hobby photographer, takes a picture he often crouches down, shifting his perspective, getting closer or farther from the object he is framing. By contrast, I take the same picture framed from my own 5 foot height stance. In failing to shift, I miss much of the beauty my son is capturing. He then edits pictures from yet another perspective by removing entire backgrounds and adding filters and color. The scene is a fresh creation that I completely missed by failing to alter my perspective.
The Word of God tells us when we surrender to the Lord, coming to salvation, we are made new. We are now in the likeness of God created in true righteousness and holiness as Ephesians 4 teaches. Our perspective is to shift to accommodate this Truth. But this doesn't come naturally to us, it must be supernatural. A perspective shift requires a renewed spirit of our mind. When Truth determines our thinking, then our mind is renewed and our behavior is altered to reflect that truth. Much like my son's pictures reflect a unique,
artistic perspective.
Ephesians 4 illustrates this shift by highlighting certain behaviors that reflect the new angle. We speak truth. We may be angry but do not sin in that anger. We no longer steal but work honestly and share with others rather than take. Our talk is no longer corrupt but rather encouraging and grace filled. We live kindly, tenderheartedly and forgiving. Why? Our perspective has shifted and we remember we are made in His likeness, we are forgiven and we are new creations.

From what perspective are you thinking and behaving?
In what way do you need to shift your perspective today?
Let's let His truth reframe our minds and thus give us the framework of grace from which to live.

dare to reimagine

Reimagine.
Life has a glorious, thrilling and often times hair-raising way of turning out so very differently than we imagined, doesn't it? When, as a young girl of six, I watched my parents divorce and move to separate states, I never imagined I would be walked down the isle with my arm linked in my Dad's sixteen years later. As I watched my mother marry my stepfather who I spent years loathing and being loathed in return,  I certainly never dared to imagine my Dad would return to our family and remarry my mother.  But in God's glorious providence and grace, that is exactly what happened. My life was reimagined by a good God.

Not every turn ends in what feels good. Life certainly has a way of beating us up, too. Burying my sweet Daddy after only getting him back in our life for twenty-three short years was a blow to the gut from which we are all still recovering. But in God's abundant grace, it was not before he placed his faith in Jesus and walked a fruit bearing season of life with his Savior for whom he was ready to meet face to face when called Home.

Sitting in the pew next to my dearest people one Easter Sunday, watching the artist paint the empty tomb and enormous rolled away stone, I silently begged the Lord for the salvation of my Dad. Open his eyes, oh God, to his need for you and his willingness to turn to you!

If I can move the stone from that tomb, I can move the stone from his heart, Came the response in my soul so clearly I had to look around to see if anyone else felt it.

And sure enough, two more years passed and my Daddy came home one evening to my mother with the words she had longed to hear since her own recent conversion, I placed my faith in Jesus today and surrendered my life to my Savior.

It was after supper when my phone rang with my mother's joy-filled words of eternal hope and answered prayer. Life was being reimagined by a faithful God, yet again.

Pondering the turns life has taken in 43 short years of experience, it seems to mimic a roller coaster more than a scenic stroll. But around every bend and in the midst of every plummet, my God has been so faithful just as 2 Thessalonians 3:3 promises and He will continue to be for always. We can entrust this life to His imagining and reimagining because He alone works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) So let's dare to reimagine and then dare to let Him amaze us.

five minute friday: normal

How can there be a normal in the midst of an ever changing life? How can we find norm when everything keeps changing? These men-children keep growing and going. This man keeps graying, reminding me of my own roots. The bills ebb and flow and, by God's grace, the provision flows along with them.

In a season where all the world is pleading like beggars for normalcy, we are reminded there is no such thing.

Standing at the shore and watching the waves plummet the sand only to pull back again, I call to mind that normalcy of change. Maybe that in itself is our normalcy. Aren't we just fooling ourselves to think anything else will be the norm?

At that time, His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken-- that is things that have been made-- in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:26-29

The shaking of this world, the lack of sameness in our lives, the constant upheavals and trials that consume us stand as proof that the only normalcy is change. We think "when things get back to normal" and then quickly feel the weight of that lack of real normal. Just because restaurants open, schools are in session and jobs feel secure does not guard us from the next trial, the next hurricane, the next diagnosis, the next virus.

Jesus alone is the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever. He stands in sharp contrast to our ever changing, ever shifting sandy soil. He alone is the stability of our times, the Prophet Isaiah points out (33:6).

So while we look for a return to normal, maybe what we really long for is a return to the one who is the Unchanging Stability we truly long for. Take hold of Him and He will not let go.

rest

I step through the picket gate into the small garden and immediately feel my mind lighten. The rustle of the magnolia leaves overhead stir up stillness within my soul. The simplicity of the dirt, the plants, the growing tomatoes in the back end of the yard seem to offer a quietness from the insanity that swirls so closely.
Rest, stillness, cease striving. I can fail at that even when my body is not moving. Yet as I pick weeds and inspect veggie plants for pests, I sense the striving fall a

way. As I take my usual seat on the bench overlooking the growing garden, my heart is upturned as if the Lord is guiding my chin upwards with His own hand.

Look towards me, child.

Be still, know He is God. There is no other like Him and He holds all things well. Even in the midst of raising young adult men as their final steps of childhood are left behind. Even in the midst of the strain and struggle of being the sole caretaker of an aging parent, who is grieving the loss of her life partner. Even in the midst of riding the waves of my own grief. Even in the midst of COVID numbers, potential job losses, face masks and fears. Right there in the midst of that garden, in the midst of those swirling trials, the Lord is God and He calls my soul to stillness. Rest. Cease striving.
Where should my mind reach instead?
It is impossible to shut it off, to flip the light switch and stop the feeling, the thinking and the fears.

Know I am God. 

Know it, internalize that truth and receive its strength. If He is God, then I can sit right here in this garden and offer thanksgiving for the swaying trees, the bold blueness of the sky, the upturned leaves of these strawberries brimming with little white flowers and the hope of fruit to come. In the stillness I realize that the gratitude for His God-ness is drawing the stillness into me. I pause and let it overtake the fears, anxieties and doubts. I let Him be bigger than teenagers, finances, viruses.
Before I take the walk back towards the house, I ask Him to remind me of this and to draw me back to gratitude with each restart of the swirl. a hymn comes to mind and I am sure it is His Spirit humming it within me as I close the back door behind me.

restore

He restores my soul.
He. Restores. My. Soul. (Psalm 23:3)

He, God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Yahweh, the covenant keeping God.
The One who spoke the world into being.
The One who knows me, loves me and died for me to know Him and love Him.

Restores. Present tense. A continual action. A right now kind of restoring.
From the original "shub" meaning to turn back, return back.

My. Me with all my thoughts, complications and circumstances.

Soul. The deepest place within. My secret place where I let the enemy lie to me as I try to hide insecurities and fears. The place within me that easily wanders from the only One who can return me to Himself.

He restores my soul, turning me back to intimacy with Himself. He leads me in paths of righteousness, making the next right choice before me. For the sake of His name, He puts His own character and name on the line, making Himself vulnerable to me so I might mimic His character, choices and actions once He has brought restoration, redemption, returning, healing to my weary, wandering soul.

re-membering

Two hundred thirty-four. That is how many times the Word of God mentions remembering. What is it to remember? May be a bit like the word implies. Re-membering, to member again, to put back into order. One definition for member is the constituent piece of a complex structure. Aren't our lives the complex structure to which this piece, this remembering, is needed?
The other day my youngest and I recalled our family vacation last year with laughter as we pondered the fun adventures of that trip to FL. My husband smiled last night as we reminisced about our anniversary trip to Jamaica and the bonding that the trip brought to our 20 years of marriage. A lump forms in my throat as I remember the sound of my dad's laugh or the way he held my hand on his last day on this earth.
Re-membering. Even the hard memories have a way of membering us back together. Like a puzzle that made no sense until the piece were pulled together to make a picture. It can heal pain in relationships, bond us to others in shared experiences and keep alive those we miss so much.
What will we remember from this season? This spring of 2020 filled with its uncertainties and losses. Will we look back on this season with fondness, remembering the college student now home bonding with siblings. Will we recall the late nights by the fire pit roasting marshmallows  and laughing until our stomachs hurt? Will even the fears of job instability and the grief of the many lost lives cause us to be membered again as we see the hand of God in hindsight?
Remembering matters to God. He calls His people to do it often. Asking them to call to mind His faithfulness, His compassion, His presence. He even demonstrates His own remembering, this One who is never dismembered or forgetful. Yet He re-members so we will see the example, the joy in it and the activity of redemption in even the hardest rememberings.
But the challenge is looking for Him in the moments by giving thanks to the One who never leaves us, the One worth remembering, the One who by His grace remembers you. "It is He who remembered us in our low estate, for His steadfast love endures forever" Psalm 136:23. Let's chose to see His steadfast love in our re-membering.

reaching

At five feet even, I always seem to find myself reaching. Books on the shelf, frozen veggies in the grocery store, boxes in the closet. Always reaching up, often on tippy toes.
Metaphorically, I have found myself reaching often too. Another glass of wine,  social media scrolling, texts to friends. Anything to numb, distract and fill the canyon that is all too often echoing within my soul that yearns for a continual filling.
Now here we are weeks spent at home, time unfilled, demands waning, yet giving way to anxieties that scream and tug at the corners of my mind. What do I reach for? CNN, Facebook or more carbs?
The Lord met me in Ephesians 3:14-19 this morning with an answer.
Paul prays here for other believers, that we would be strengthened with His power through His Spirit to know the unknowable and immeasurable love of Christ and he says that will bring a filling with all the fullness of God. That word, strengthened, from the Greek word meaning to have the upper hand gave me such a visual of my own hand slipping into the hand of the One who is already holding me.
Jesus reached out His hand and took hold of Peter in Matthew 14:31. This morning, He reached out His hand afresh and invited me to take hold of His. "Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?" He asks Peter. Oh you of little faith, what are you reaching for to fill you? Right here in the boredom and anxiety of this season. Right now in the pain and the trials. Are you reaching for His filling hand or for that which will leave you empty? Continue to reach afresh today, for the upper hand that really does strengthen and fill with all the fullness of God.

a rewrite

To begin again. To stare afresh at the blank page. A fresh start with new words and fresh mercies. To rewrite the story is to boldly pick up the pen again, laying aside what was behind and starting fresh with the new. Paul gave us this charge from a prison cell.
"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead," (Philippians 3:12-13).
Everyone's story could always stand some rewriting. There are trials we would have preferred to avoid. There are pits we have dug that we prefer to never have even held that shovel. There is pain that entangled our hearts that would have been better to skirt. But the reality is those made us who we are and the rewritten story will always have a climax, twists and gorgeous resolutions that draw praise from the hearts of redeemed sinners.
Now we stand on the cusp of a pivot, of a rewrite of sorts. Having lived in a quarantine, a season of blank calendars and cancelled plans has left us disappointed, bored, and fidgety. We hope there is a newness coming. Fresh starts with a blinking cursor that await new challenges. What awaits us in the post-Covid world? Will we, like Paul, take up the mantel of fresh mercies that compel us to "press on towards the goal for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus?" (Philippians 3:14)
For what would any other rewrite be worth? Isn't it all for His glory and His purposes anyway?
The winding up in cords of plans and demands of schedules and the pace of distraction was only tangling us up as the enemy drew us further from our families, our callings and our Master. We let distraction run the show and wondered why we were too numb to applaud, glazed over by weariness and frenzy. Time to rewrite that screenplay.
Paul goes on to challenge those who are mature in Christ to think as he does and allows the conviction to fall from God's hand into the hearts of those who are still floundering in the waves of social media, Netflix and nonsense. He punctuates the point with "only let us hold true to what we have attained." So what is it that you and I have attained over the course of this season? Will be choose to emerge with a new turn in the story, a fresh plot ahead that finds us with our eyes wide open and fixed on His face and a bold new charge to press forward in the name of Jesus our Lord.

five minute friday: refrain

Refrain. The word immediately stirs up regrets within me. What have I failed to refrain from, withhold from, keep my heart from? Scripture warns the reader, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4:23). If we are guarding, keeping our hearts, then we must be refraining from that which is not life giving, that which does not offer the Living Water that fills those springs of life from where flows our heart. So where have I allowed distraction, disruption and disturbance to drive the car to sin for my own soul? From what have I failed to refrain? Thus regret.

Just below the surface of that regret, as I peek underneath to ponder the Truth that lies there quietly, I see that while regret might have its place; in as far as it leads me to repentance; as greater gift of regret is the door it unlocks. See, regret can lead to grace. How so? In the abundance of grace that envelopes one who repents, the regrets become a do over. They call out for fresh starts and new mercies. A new day dawns, even in the middle of the day, when regret leads to repentance and the grace breaks forth to meet it like a heavy wave coming hard and fast towards the thirsty sand of a needy soul. Refrain is the new door, the new start. Now the choice to refrain looms ahead again. Will I die to self? To flesh? To unholy wants? And will I choose this day to live to Christ?

Proverbs 4 elaborates in it's warning of heart guarding with these words, "Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil" (Proverbs 4:24-27). It could be said this way, refrain from ugly words, refrain from deviousness, refrain from distractions, refrain from thoughtless wandering. When we refrain from that which is not of the Lord and we chose to live intentionally, then the refrain of our days turns to praise as we gaze at the Face of the grace that is consuming us.