I once called goldfinch in summer plumage “Flying daffodils.” Look about you. Never know when you, too, will discover a …. and just now the tapping on the window screen … revealed right next to me a young goldfinch in full summer plumage picking insects from the edge of the screen. Oh my! He surprised me!! pink feet and all!! At least I think it was a goldfinch! No camera nearby.
“And He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also He said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Revelation 21:5
“For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.”
Have you ever been discombobulated? One guy on Christian radio asks if that means most of the time we are combobulated? Free Dictionary by Farlex says there is no such word. Well discombobulated means befuddled, flummoxed, confused. There are times I forget my most important thing, writing about my relationship with the Lord and how you can have a relationship with Him, too.
The poem shows my remorse at losing track of trying to put my spiritual journey into words. At least ten years before I wrote the poem above, my cousin, Peggy, gave me this verse about writing.
The LORD answered me: Write down this vision; clearly inscribe it on tablets so one may easily read it.
Habakkuk 2:2 CSB
Oh Lord, that I might always take up Your challenge about writing as purpose for my heart and soul. May You be blessed by my attempts and may I always be willing to listen to Your edits and changes. As Toby Mac wrote and sang, “Come and steal my show!”
Some of the best lyrics were not listed in the video. Are you willing to yield the things below to God?
My life My plans My heart, it’s all Yours, God My dreams My fears My family, my career Take it away
Have you ever taken your life back once you said God could be in charge? In 1981 I did just that. Here in 2022 I have no recall of what the circumstances were. I would love to say that was the one and only time I ever did that, and that would make me as the saying goes, “one big fat liar.”
I was delighted to see this come up when I was searching online for pictures to populate my writing. I own one of these prints! Your are His lamb too and He will hold you!
Jesus Calling for June 7 reads in part: “Who is in charge of your life? If it is you, then you have good reason to worry. But since I am in charge, worry is both unnecessary and counterproductive.” And then Sarah Young goes on to share the advice she heard from the Lord: “When you start to feel anxious about something, relinquish the situation to Me. Back off a bit, redirecting your focus to Me. I will either take care of the problem Myself or show you how to handle it. In this world you will have problems, but you need not lose sight of Me.”
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NIV
So who is going to rule on your plain of self? Have you yielded your all to Jesus Christ?
“I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”
― Mark Twain
I love that quote. It reminds me of the vivid imagination I have that can turn to darkness in the blink of an eye if I am not vigilant to control it by the power of the Spirit. This report from the Huff Post (formerly The Huffington Post) upholds Twain’s wisdom.
“Five hundred years ago, Michel de Montaigne said: “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.” Now there’s a study that proves it. This study looked into how many of our imagined calamities never materialize. In this study, subjects were asked to write down their worries over an extended period of time and then identify which of their imagined misfortunes did not actually happen. Lo and behold, it turns out that 85 percent of what subjects worried about never happened, and with the 15 percent that did happen, 79 percent of subjects discovered either they could handle the difficulty better than expected, or the difficulty taught them a lesson worth learning. This means that 97 percent of what you worry over is not much more than a fearful mind punishing you with exaggerations and misperceptions.”
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.“
There have been times the last few weeks when I was uncertain that I could take a deep breath. Wounding words have been flung at me with no explanation of their origin, seemingly no possibility of reconciliation that makes any healthy sense. Only texting offered. Most of us know you cannot resolve conflict with texting alone. I am always amazed at how the Lord can reach me even when I seem to be in a dark and dismal place. Recently (and often) He does it through the books I read.
Jodi Picoult wrote Wish You Were Here. This new novel is about life during the Covid pandemic, dreams and adventure, along with the horror of being a doctor treating Covid in NYC. In it she spoke of how land iguanas adapted to sea life. “Their lungs got bigger so they could take deeper breaths and sink deeper.”
Lord God, expand my lungs and help me to go deeper in prayer and center down silence, that peaceful place where You speak to my soul. I cannot change or fix the troubling situation, but I can draw nearer to You for comfort and wisdom and direction.
Again, Jodi wrote, “You can’t move forward without losing something.”
Perhaps lose the fantasy about what I wanted, the person I thought was under my roof? Get clear about the reality of who that person was and has become?
Letting go, letting go, letting go, like leaves that fall all around me in autumn. Nothing I can accomplish by clinging. Just let go and be at peace.
Each previous wounding episode I would say, “Take another step back, back away. Nothing more I can do here.” And so perhaps the time has come to truly step away and turn loose of all hopes, dreams, plans in relation to this person? In case you are wondering, Bob and I are just fine, thank you very much!
In 2018 I wrote about spending time with the Lord in our meeting place. Here is the poetry musing written in 2011 re-posted for your consideration.
This photo for my Trysting place is in the city. The treetop shows a dense shelter. The tree in the bustle of Southern California is meant to signify that I can go to my meeting place with the Risen Christ in any location.
I cannot take a camera to our trysting place My attempts to draw it are incomplete You meet me there in a sturdy platform room protected, sheltered, made from the wood of Your cross and also like the palm of Your hand where You fold Your wings of love around me
The wooden floor of the platform tree is always smooth and comfortable no splinters, fine weather leaves dancing in holy wind my joy to be there
I stand, lie, sit, sing, weep, wait and always You are there
Occasionally I must place myself upon the altar table Your soul correction treatments are swift and sweet when I yield to You I can make myself miserable imagining what might happen if I yield to you. Awfulizing is never a clear mirror of truth.
When I get centered in silence we often travel down the center of the trunk as if by elevator arriving at the stream of living water that nourishes the tree refreshes my soul brings to my being all things I need
My surrender to this trysting place is sometimes jagged, prolonged, not smooth or graceful
Yet once I give myself to the quiet and arrive I always ponder what spawned my reluctance?
Eleven years trying to express this phenomenon and I am still not satisfied that I have gotten my experience across.
Like most of us, the siblings above seem to be asking, “Now what?” We usually expect something negative or ornery or at minimum unexpected when family gathers. As we carry this worrisome aspect around we more often than not lose sight of the power of God to change and rearrange things.
When we recently traveled to the beach I was quieted to realize again God is in control, even when I might not sense His control. If only I will accept His love and power over my life, I can come to a place of rest instead of expecting turmoil.
And the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?
How many playground rhymes do you remember? Some of these popped into my brain this week. If I am ever in a nursing home wing for Alzheimer’s I hope these songs and rhymes help restore me to some form of sanity. (Here Bob might chuckle “Sanity is too much to hope for even today!” Ever the tease. He is oldest of five kids. I’ve learned how to give it back!)
My Dad worked for the N & W railroad. Mom wasn’t the only one who sang in the car! Daddy taught us this one.
I left my wife
Alone in the kitchen
With 28 children
And nothing but gingerbread left
Left, left, right, left
Oh it ain't gonna rain no more no more
Ain't gonna rain no more
How in the heck can I wash my neck
if it ain't gonna rain no more?
I woke up in the morning
the bread was hard and stale
the coffee tasted like tobacco juice
from the US county jail, OH ( with gusto!)
So what poems or verses are in your memory bank?
A my name is Alice
and my husband's name is Al
we live in Alabama where we grow apples
How far in the alphabet did you get? Do you remember? Was this for jump rope or bouncing a ball against the wall and passing it under your knee when you hit the A words? Ah! memory lane can be fun sometimes.
“Each part of each life is a lesson.” Some of us never realize this; however, some of us learn and cherish the lessons and move on.
To me “things learned in darkness” are unknown by most other people yet known to God. Others have no clue what you have endured or struggled with. Frankly, there are few on earth who would still love and accept you if they knew your struggles. Each of us is quick to judge others. God knows all about us. Palm 139:1-7 NIV says:
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
God knows. This is what omniscient means: “One having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding.” He also knows our struggles in the dark.
even the darkness is not dark to You;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139:12 NRSV
My struggles are often against things from the past. Sins done both by me and to me. Things said about me that were never corrected by the speaker. Things I have wrestled with God about. Things I have wrestled with against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of this present darkness and spiritual forces of evil. (Ephesians 6:12 NRSV) There are also struggles in the present. Keeping my tongue in check. Being kind when it is habitual to lash against others. Staying the course, choosing to walk in the Light of Christ even when chronic illness crushes me.
Each of us faces struggles on the earth with other earthlings and with those wicked forces of evil. With Jesus and the indwelling Holy Spirit we can overcome those forces. We must be willing to endure the warfare. We must be willing to put on our armor and go into the fight. If not, the battles can continue to wage in and about us all of our lives. The same old, same old, over and over and over again.
People see you on the outside. For the most part, they do not know what struggles you have faced in your soul and spirit. But the Father sees. He is willing to come alongside you with the Spirit and the Son for each skirmish.
When I taught a Bible study on the women’s unit at the Hamilton County Justice Center I wore a button telling the women I was “not as innocent as I looked.” And I am not as innocent as I look today. God, Who reads the heart, knows what each of us have endured, as well as what each of us has done. The Word says, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 NRSV
We are all broken. We each have need of the Holy Healer and Savior.
Rescue
Lauren Daigle
You are not hidden
There's never been a moment
You were forgotten
You are not hopeless
Though you have been broken
Your innocence stolen
I hear you whisper underneath your breath
I hear your SOS, your SOS
I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It's true, I will rescue you
There is no distance
That cannot be covered
Over and over
You're not defenseless
I'll be your shelter
I'll be your armor
I hear you whisper underneath your breath
I hear your SOS, your SOS
I will send out an army to find you
Treasures in Plain Sight, A Christian Blog 