begin--Five Minute Friday
Well, it seems I don't know where to begin. Yet I know I am at a beginning. The truth of it, the promise lingers below my language, below my awareness sometimes. I am standing on the edge of a beginning. He is standing beside me, holding my hand, reminding me to stop squirming, to stop straining my eyes trying to see where we are going.
Endings are always beginnings.
I ended college, and summer slipped her restful evenings into my lap like a good book. But not before worry planted weeds in my mind, cluttering up the wildflower thoughts He grows for my good. So I tend to my mind, weed out thoughts that don't belong, and pray that whether rain (a job) comes or not, the garden will grow.
Maybe there are bigger plans. Maybe there are smaller plans for bigger good. But I am learning patience, choosing trust, living uncertainty, finding joy. Beginnings seem muddled to the ones who are in them. But peace does is not dependent on or provided by my understanding.
Peace is Him.
And if peace is Him, and He is with us, we cannot fear to begin.
July 31, 2014
July 25, 2014
finish
Five-Minute-Friday: Finish
Finish--I think of the finishes my mom coats on her art, the finish she puts on to echo age, a brown varnish, a walnut dye. And I think of how He is finishing me.
I wait here, watching the opportunities fall to those I love--jobs, interviews, fellowships. And I wait. Still being touched up, while He is painting that patience and trust, finely adding shadows, that small flower in the corner, that little stroke of courage.
But this work in progress is learning to enjoy the process, this leg of the journey that moves so slow. Waiting for the finish of this part of the story, this summer of struggling to find myself in Him. But here in this shallow valley, there is inspiration. There are words that flow unchecked, marking white pages and typing patterns and being written alive by His story. There is painting and the careful mix of colors, the smooth strokes of love for the canvas that create something humble-beautiful. Even the carving of wood--hard cuts, frustrating grains that run the wrong way, a bird growing from what was once tree.
So as He puts the final touches on this chapter, adds a finish to make me shine, I find something more encouraging and life-altering than a job or a published book: Him.
Finish--I think of the finishes my mom coats on her art, the finish she puts on to echo age, a brown varnish, a walnut dye. And I think of how He is finishing me.
I wait here, watching the opportunities fall to those I love--jobs, interviews, fellowships. And I wait. Still being touched up, while He is painting that patience and trust, finely adding shadows, that small flower in the corner, that little stroke of courage.
But this work in progress is learning to enjoy the process, this leg of the journey that moves so slow. Waiting for the finish of this part of the story, this summer of struggling to find myself in Him. But here in this shallow valley, there is inspiration. There are words that flow unchecked, marking white pages and typing patterns and being written alive by His story. There is painting and the careful mix of colors, the smooth strokes of love for the canvas that create something humble-beautiful. Even the carving of wood--hard cuts, frustrating grains that run the wrong way, a bird growing from what was once tree.
So as He puts the final touches on this chapter, adds a finish to make me shine, I find something more encouraging and life-altering than a job or a published book: Him.
July 23, 2014
Tarnish
We print it
on our coffee mugs,
tattoo it
to our skin,
slather it
on social media,
but do we really believe it?
Does it sear into our very souls?
Does it burrow in our bones?
Does it soak into our skin
like a watering rain
down in the deepest roots
of the oak
that stretch into the dark soil?
I want that.
I want it to be the
bones
soul
roots
and blood that paces
in ceaseless rhythms around
the hollow tunnels of my heart.
I want the truth
to be more
than tarnish.
"I think it is virtually impossible to honestly say that knowing God, as God intends to be known by his people in the new covenant, simply means mental awareness or understanding or acquaintance with God. Not in a million years is that what “knowing God” means here...You can know about God by research; but until the researcher is ravished by what he sees, he doesn't know God for who He really is." John Piper
"I think it is virtually impossible to honestly say that knowing God, as God intends to be known by his people in the new covenant, simply means mental awareness or understanding or acquaintance with God. Not in a million years is that what “knowing God” means here...You can know about God by research; but until the researcher is ravished by what he sees, he doesn't know God for who He really is." John Piper
July 17, 2014
bloom
Five Minute Friday: Bloom
It seems so perfect, so planned by a great Orchestrater. I spent time with the flowers today. Smelled them. Arranged some in a vase to replace the sagging, wilting crew dropping pollen and petals on the table. A fresh bouquet so that mom will feel a little loved when she gets home. To remind me to go outside and let the flowers bump my shins and thighs and nose when I get too close.
To remind me to live. To remind me that this state of limbo, between college and (hopefully) finding a job is not a conveyor belt taking me to the next place. No, wherever we are put can either be a garden or a pit of dirt.
I've been digging, taking off the sod, preparing the ground for a patio. It really doesn't look nice, that rectangle of dirt littered with hacked grass and an annoying abundance of small rocks. That stretch of dirt will be something else soon, but right now it is ugly and barren.
I want to be a garden. "Bloom where you are planted," people always say. Yeah, that's something people get right, at least in the head. Even if you are in a tiny, plastic pot instead of a gorgeously landscaped raised bed with stepping stones and sun--bloom.
I am learning to make each day count in small ways--a kind note, an encouraging text, praying for and thinking about friends in hard places and good, showing kindness instead of retaliation, patience instead of frustration. It is hard work--gardens usually are. But He has the greenest thumb to ever exist.
It seems so perfect, so planned by a great Orchestrater. I spent time with the flowers today. Smelled them. Arranged some in a vase to replace the sagging, wilting crew dropping pollen and petals on the table. A fresh bouquet so that mom will feel a little loved when she gets home. To remind me to go outside and let the flowers bump my shins and thighs and nose when I get too close.
To remind me to live. To remind me that this state of limbo, between college and (hopefully) finding a job is not a conveyor belt taking me to the next place. No, wherever we are put can either be a garden or a pit of dirt.I've been digging, taking off the sod, preparing the ground for a patio. It really doesn't look nice, that rectangle of dirt littered with hacked grass and an annoying abundance of small rocks. That stretch of dirt will be something else soon, but right now it is ugly and barren.
I want to be a garden. "Bloom where you are planted," people always say. Yeah, that's something people get right, at least in the head. Even if you are in a tiny, plastic pot instead of a gorgeously landscaped raised bed with stepping stones and sun--bloom.
I am learning to make each day count in small ways--a kind note, an encouraging text, praying for and thinking about friends in hard places and good, showing kindness instead of retaliation, patience instead of frustration. It is hard work--gardens usually are. But He has the greenest thumb to ever exist.
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