Moments for the Scrapbook

This has been a week.  Snapshots of life that I took with my head and my heart and saved for later, to remember, to ponder, to learn from, to talk over with my Creator, to savor, to kick to the side as so much mental distraction.  I won't.....I refuse...to let it alter Truth.

I had a young mama step onto my life's doorstep and reach out for words from someone who's been there.  I treasure those times; to reassure, to build up, to restore something that's been battered around and tattered up from living.

I sat with a boy and we talked about what we were afraid of and figured out; we're not that different in our fears; and we sat close to each other for comfort and sorted things out.  Learning someone is scary sometimes.  You risk being misunderstood.  If you can get to the other side of the conversation, sometimes you see the Son come up on both of you.

I've figured out I have a hard time receiving.  It scares me.  It warms me.  It encourages me.  It puzzles me.  I keep wanting to give it back, just in case you didn't really mean it; to give you a chance to recant.  I realize it's uncovering just how deep some wounds can go?  And healing them at the same time.

One of the people I work for; she lost her mama this week.  I came to her house to help put things back in order.  What I actually did was sit on the floor with her and let her show me a video of her sweet mom swaying to music she loved so much and seeing my friends' eyes fill with tears and realize.....this was a moment of trust.  She'd put her heart next to mine and let me see that it hurt.  I hugged her gentle and swallowed the lump in my throat.

I made soup, more than one kind, because it's how I love. I took pictures because it's how I see.  I shared time because it's how I care.  I watched a kid skate, even though he was at first afraid other kids might make fun of him if they saw him bring me along.  But the desire to have me proud of him overruled and he pulled me out of my car, where I sat hidden to protect his fragile heart, and made sure I saw what he could do.  And I silently cheered him on and prayed him to grow brave in spirit.

This has been a week.  I'm grateful for it.

Gathering Words

It's been awhile since I've written.......I tend to have times of listening.  My ear has been to the ground for awhile now.  I yearn to hear truth more than I crave chocolate.  That's a lot of crave.  I tread quiet and careful when I write.  I'm aware it hits hearts and I want it to be authentic.  I want it to carry hope and plant it to make those hearts beat stronger and braver; to wrap safe around them.  To let them know I understand what it's like to be people.  Cause I am one.

This is what I've learned.  When He, the One Who calls me His, tells me things, I can believe them.  When He told me that I would find Him if I sought Him like a dog seeks a rabbit..e a r n e s t l y....He'd be where He said He'd be; standing right in front of me.  When He told me I'd have trouble, He wasn't kidding.  This world?  It's hard living some days.  Leaves a soul weary and unrested; craving something that's hard to put in words.

Here lately?  I asked Him for His mind on something.  I wanted to learn it from His heart to mine, with no middle man.  And to my surprise, He showed me and I know this because when I acted without hesitation on what I sensed?  He let me see that it was Him all along.  And the seed of faith became planted deeper in the soil of my heart and I breathed deep.

This life?  It'll be over soon.  Some days I want it to be.  Some days I can't imagine anything being prettier than gold leaves.  But I was reminded recently, I have colors waiting for me that I've never even heard of, colors with no name for them.  And so, friend.  I encourage you today. Keep your head up, keep your ear to the ground, keep your spirit soft and tender, no matter how hard the bumps become.  No matter how scared you get, the One who loves you is holding You in the palm of His hand.

This song?  It isn't a "church" song.  But it puts its' finger on what it feels like to be alive some days.  There is rest for the weary.  I promise.

What Can God Fix?

It occurred to me this morning, as I sat all quiet and peaceful......and read words that told me that God founded the mountains, stills the roaring of the waves, visits earth and saturates it with water......founded the mountains, for crying out loud??  That's a might more powerful that I can wrap myself around.  And then, following all that power?  Then this.....He stills the tumult of his people and makes the soil soft with showers and blesses the sprouting of its vegetation and crowns the year with beauty and goodness.  The meadows are clothed with flocks, the valleys are covered with grain.....

It strikes me.  It strikes me in all that Power....the words turn soft and gentle and loving.  Stills, showers, blesses, crowns, clothes and covers.  I crave that assurance, that gentle heart touch.

Those words soothe me when the weeks can be filled with hospitals and clogged drains and crowns of a different sort that fall out and need a dentist and cars that go bump and squeak so you turn up the radio and you don't hear the fear and vulnerable that keeps wanting to forget that if He founded the mountains?  Surely He won't forget me?

I cling tight to His assurance that He owns the cattle on the hills I bump along on.  Sometimes I fiercely wipe away tears that betray my looking at the water moments.  Often I feel like a comedy of errors that need a Lucy and Ethel rescue and it makes me want to pull up fake and hide behind it.  No amount of fretting, though, takes away my choice to still believe.  To sit up on the front of the boat and laugh at the trouble when it sloshes in my nose and eyes.

"Blessed, happy, is the man whom You choose and cause to come near, that He may dwell in Your courts."

When You're Thankful for Legs That Work and Soup to Make

This morning, strangely, I felt like I was supposed to stay home from church.  So.  I did.  Then, I felt like I was supposed to "make ready" for the day.  So.  I tamed my curly hair and bubbled in a bath and as I put down the bottle of my favorite lotion my phone rang.  And I spent the remainder of the day in the hospital with my ailing mother.  She could not make her legs work because she could not stop the pain.  I sat feeling mostly helpless at her reaction, first to the pain and then to the morphine to help the pain.  And, though the relationship between my mother and I has dramatically mended, there were some hard heart moments for me in which I had to walk down the hall and reclaim the truth and not wear someone else's lens up to my eye with which to view the world.

In the end, all was settled and I left her in good hands.  I walked out of the hospital and breathed in the lovely evening and laid down my anxiety and frustration and left it at my Creator's feet and thanked Him for my working legs and lungs that fill and eyes that saw the sunset.  It is not worth anything to miss those things.

I walked through my door and went straight to my kitchen; the haven of my heart, really.  I chop onions and saute sausage and hum to myself.  I'm making soup for people I love and it feels good and right to create and let the day's emotions evaporate into the steam rolling up from the pot.  I'm thankful tonight that I could be there for my mother, that my heart has healed enough for me to stand in that place.  I'm grateful that I have the Lover of my soul to take the prickly parts of getting involved and He can make them bloom into beautiful.  And I'm glad that I have legs that work and soup to make and people to love and care about and a kitchen to  create in.

Up a Creek Without a Crowbar

This.  This is one of those mornings when all my talk about trusting my Father God feels like I'm a fake.  Because something simple.  Something so so stupid silly simple finds me on my couch crying.  I went upstairs to blow my hair dry, not realizing my sleeping girl had her heater on in the next room.  This house I live in?  This wonderfully old house with character?  Has a screwy wiring system that causes all kinds of dances with plugging and unplugging things like a war room strategy when you go to use something that requires electricity.  So.  Now.  I'm faced with no electricity upstairs and a stuck cellar door, behind which lies the wizard of oz box of fuse control,  that I can't find a single crowbar to pry open......now where does one find a crowbar when one doesn't know if one even has a crowbar?

So.  I sit on my couch and miss my dad who was the only man in my life who came to my rescue and wanted to and could magically find crowbars in the air.  I cry because I feel tired at these times, having to pull up my bootstraps and wipe the snot off my face and be "strong" and figure out what to do next.  I don't wanna be strong.  Not always.  Not right now.  I feel mad at Thomas Edison for inventing electricity.  Where is he now?  I feel mad at myself for not being able to figure out what to do and crying about it.  I feel like the world demands I be independent and hear me roar woman and not want a prince charming and wear army boots rather than glass slippers but sometimes.  Sometimes.....in the dark I whisper out loud...."it's not the truth."

I don't have a solution.  Or a bible verse right now.  I just wanted to tear up kleenex  out loud and throw it.  I'll think about it more in a minute after I've had another cup of coffee.  "It's not easy being green".  I understand Kermit perfectly.

Why Toilets Mean so Much to Me....

When I was married?  I had a cleaning lady; two of them, to be precise.  It was a luxury I allowed myself in the face of four children (at the time!  Little did I know that would become six kids) under the age of 8 and homeschooling them. And then I got divorced and thus begun my University of Humility.  The one with the cleaning lady.....became one herself.

Three times a week I leave my hearts' home; the school I now work for; and come alongside the few remaining families I've kept in my work load.  One family, in particular, has a piece of my heart.  They are a homeschooling family with ten kids, only 3 of which remain at home during the day these days.  Today was their day for Tamara to come over.  I grabbed their broom and loaded up on all things that spray muck away and make it all better and started to the first of four bathrooms, three eager talkers in tow. With my head as close to the toilet as I dared ,I turned to answer the youngest little guy's question and there he stood in an Iron Man costume and a roman soldier helmet.  I smiled at him and told him how amazing he looked and  he ran off proud.

"And Tamara, what did you wear when you were in school, and Tamara what's your favorite animal, and Tamara, how old are you, and you're that old??!  And Tamara, would you rather get eaten by a bear or bitten by a rattlesnake and Tamara look, look at this, come here. There are those days when I just want to get their toilets cleaned and get on with my day.  But most days, like this day?  Well, as I drove away I pondered in my heart what dropping to my knees in somebody else's bathroom and wiping off the weeks' use has given me.

And surprisingly?  It's given me a place to worship the God who loved me enough to bring me to the end of myself and show me what Love can look like in unlikely places.