Category Archives: words

A Prayer for Today

azaleas

Father some of us come wearied by the cares of this world

Our hearts are broken

Our minds confused

Our strength is gone

Others come holding firm to things that keep us from you

We grasp so tightly to our hurts, disappointments and fears…

We cannot even begin to reach out for help and relief

Father, I pray for fresh revelation of your love to overwhelm us

Revive us Lord

May we encounter you in such a way that we are compelled towards your heart and away from our own

May your Word – your Living Word – come alive in us in a way that we have never experienced

Like your breath upon the dry bones in the valley…breathe your Spirit upon us and in us!  Make us alive!

For You are God

Who forgives all our sins

Who heals all our diseases

Who redeems us from the pit

Who is faithful and true

You are God

Who loves from everlasting to everlasting

May your love drenched living breath bring a song to our lips…

“Praise The Lord all my soul – all that is within me praise his holy name!”

May we never stop singing!

Awaken in us a passion for your presence.

Open our eyes to see your Kingdom now and

May we be ready for the kingdom to come

Move mightily upon us,

Move mightily in us and

Move mightily through us

 

 

 

 

 

Can’t touch this

Misc 208

Time…

We don’t control when ours begins or even when it ends – only God.  Yet even still, He allows us control over the moments falling in between.  It is the proverbial dash between the dates found on too many tombstones.  In His creative, expressive love He has sketched out our lives but it is up to us to live the dream.

This year has been a wildly busy year with very little tangible worth.   Worth, however, isn’t always found in the items we hold or touch.  Sometimes and often more importantly, it is found in the things that touch us and change us.  In that, this year has been overflowing.

When I left my nursing career, I thought I would have all this “extra” time – time to get home and hearth in order; time to spend with friends sipping tea and eating lunch and time to pour out my words from heart to paper.  Yet, it hasn’t quite been this way.  On occasion, what I think will happen does not.  Such was this year. 

Instead of ordering home and hearth, I have been flying by the seat of my pants trying to maintain equilibrium.  I am a creature who thrives when things are clean and rightly placed.  Not compulsive by any means but life happens with more clarity when my surroundings are together. 

Instead of spending time with friends, I have been lucky to find a moment in a hallway to reconnect.  This has made a lonely year.  It is a funny road us introverts walk when our needed refueling occurs in quiet and solitude yet we desire not to do life alone.  Often, we struggle between the two.  This year has been a struggle.

Instead of writing with abandon I feel like I have abandoned my writing.  When life is a blur and tasks are overwhelming, the work of writing falls down the “must do” list.   What once used to flow now burps and spurts.

Worth carries a high price but it isn’t what you may think – it is me (and you).

I have found in the letting go of what I thought would happen – I get to embrace what He has designed.  The cost is me.  Only I can surrender myself.  Only I can allow eternity to inhabit my present moment.  He has given me that control.  When I release it back to Him, the infinite invades.  What I once sought to measure, I can no longer confine much less define.   In Him is found the exceedingly abundant more than all I can ask or imagine.  When eternity invades, His power is at work within. 

I may not be able to touch it but I have been changed by it.

And that has made this a very good year.

Sweet Silence

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Sweet silence I beg

               do not leave me

Rather, surround me

               in your gentle arms

In your sweet caress

               may I find peace

In your warm embrace

               may I find love

In your quiet comfort

               may I find forgiveness

Oh, most gentle spirit

               graceful and true

In your presence

               I know that God exists

In the sweetness of solitude

               He speaks to me

 

These simple words were shared almost 5 years ago on my very first blog.  Today, the quiet calls me back…

Faith Walking

evergreen path

Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of Your universe…Each day enrapture me with Your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share
in the wonder of it all
.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

I want to be a faith-walker. I want to be one who does not muddle a life journey with the need to know. I want to be one who steps out in faith into the great unknown desiring only to share in the wonder and glory of the God who created it all.

  • Like Noah, who built an ark when it wasn’t raining. Like Abraham, who went even though he didn’t know where he was going.
  • Like David, who as a child killed the giant warrior with a stone and a sling while the armies watched.
  • Like Esther, who approached the king not knowing if he would receive her or kill her.
  • Like Isaiah, who saw the Lord seated on His throne; felt his unworthiness and with touch of God’s glory eagerly offered to be sent by the Lord as a prophet.
  • Like the disciples, who left their nets and their lives to follow the One who called to them.
  • Like Stephen, who spoke boldly for the Lord and was stoned for it – in his dying moment he prayed for those who threw the stones.
  • Like Saul,who became Paul after a meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. His life was never the same.

A faith walker doesn’t ask why. With faith, there is that unknown factor. If you can see, you can touch it and you know why it is there – do you really need faith?

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1 NIV

I am not a faith walker or at least not one with great consistency.  My “why’s” are often like the “why’s” of a toddler, incessant. Is the need to know really important?If knowing the “why’s” doesn’t change the circumstance then the knowing isn’t important.  Faith, however, is essential. Often, the situation remains unchanged but it is faith that causes a transformation. Not in the circumstance but in the heart.

My “why’s” should be my “why not’s” in Christ.

Why not believe in the God who created my inmost being and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Why not believe in the God who has created and ordained the days before even one came into being. Why not believe in the God who gave of His very own save me.  Why not trust my yesterday, today and tomorrow to the God who planned for me, created me, saved me, knows me and sustains me.

Faith goes up the stairs that love has made and looks out the window which hope has opened.

Charles H. Spurgeon
(This is a repost from my earlier blog with a few minor edits – there are always room for edits.)

This Present Moment

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As I was reading this morning, this quote jumped off the page:

“All we need to know is how to recognize His will in this present moment.” (Jean-Pierre de Caussade).

What echoed in my heart and soul was how much of “this present moment” we miss (I miss).

Our now is so easily lost by our need to fill space and heart with the wanting and the wasted. We hunger for things to come and miss what is right in front of us. We worry about how things appear to others we forget to live the truth as it really is.

Distraction is a fine tool of our enemy. For when our focus is removed from what is at hand, we miss the opportunity to hold the present grace that resides within our reach. Instead, we struggle to snatch at the empty air trying to grab things that are not meant for now and in truth, may never be ours to hold.

Today my prayer is…

May what God ordains for this present moment be the only thing I want or hold.