Category Archives: words

Twilight Examen

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Twilight is falling like a gentle rain. I am not ready for this day’s impending demise because there is much left within me wanting – yet it comes, ready or not.

So, rather than fight the inevitable, I pause to collect my thoughts.

What has this day brought to me?

What have I given back to it?

Have those I met been better for our encounter?

What is this day’s greatest blessing?

What is undone…can it remain so for now and maybe forever?

What one thing did I accomplish that brings joy to my heart?

Is there someone I need to make peace with?

Simple questions can lead to profound answers.

Within this sacred pause, I am both graced and confronted. Yet, in order to live my life mindfully they must be asked.  For too long, I have toddled along my life’s path moment to moment missing the holy in the midst of the mundane.

Too often I ventured from the good way because the wrong way looked so right. Those missteps have carried a heavy price.

In these twilight opportunities, we are given opportunity to draw down the shade of this day and wrap ourselves in the great silence of night. Waste not this chance.

Soon, very soon, the grace of another dawn will rise.

O’ Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, Lord, in your mercy grant us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last; through Jesus Christ our Lord. John Henry Newman

repost from my previous blog “A Sacred Longing”

 

 

Advent’s Heart

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…

It is who we are created beings – image bearers.

…You alone were formed by a huddle of hearts:  Let us make human beings.  The authority of God made all of creation but it was the affection of God that made all His children.  The three persons of the Trinity – Father God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit – gathered close together to imagine you.  And God in three persons, uncontainable affection, knelt down and kissed warm life into you with the breath of His love.

Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift

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Sweet friends, today I pray you can hold this truth close enough to feel its heartbeat – you, from the very beginning, were made with love.  The fullness of the Trinity dreamed you to be.  Their breath is your life and continues to remain.

 

May this Advent season find you waiting…not for parties and gifts but for the coming again King.

Amidst the tinsel and lights, may your eyes be open to the opportunities to shine the light of Christ into the life of another. 

May your heart be so overwhelmed that it must overflow in the grocery store, the mall, the workplace and in your very own home.

May each Advent day unfold as a slow unwrapping of creation’s wonder and may you find its beauty as near as your own breath.

Their love – your heartbeat.

 

Create

It moves and rattles the deepest reaches within. Like a geyser preparing to spew its contents that have been too long constrained.

It squeezes both heart and marrow.

It wedges between mind and spirit.

Until no longer can it be contained and pen meets paper or brush meets canvas or fingers meet piano keys.

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We are made for this. Creatives we are. Creatives we have always been.

His breath is within us – The Creator’s exhale – our life force.

Inhale deeply.

Exhale the “I am not’s.”

You were born for this.

Create.

 

 

The enemy cannot create. He can only intimidate…It’s time to take back the places of influence for God and see His beauty, holiness and Gospel become healing fragrance to restore people back to right relationship with Him.

“Born to Create”, Theresa Dedmon

 

 

Come Silence

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Silence

Blows gently on the soul

Softly separating the daily from the eternal

A heart hears more in stillness

Life finds breath in the quiet

Come silence

Settle in this day

To this soul

In my heart

Now and forever more

Amen

 

Falling Rain

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Gratitude and humility are overwhelming me. Pouring down upon me like the incessant rain falling outside my window.  I know long before this earth existed I was on God’s mind. I was and now remain an object of His focus. In Him and through Him, all the broken pieces of my life have been made whole and holy.

I bow my head in humility for I know I deserve none of it. While He has never taken His focus from me, my eyes have not held the same gaze.

Yet, still, grace and mercy flow…

I know I have been placed here and now, much like Esther, for such a time as this. I have been given opportunities to live the life of faith I profess. In Him and through Him I am equipped for the task. He supplies all my needs and all my strength to accomplish what He has set before me.

I fall to my knees in humility knowing I deserve none of this. For while He has the task prepared, I have chosen my own endeavors.

Yet, still, grace and mercy flow…

I know I have been loved completely and sacrificially. Loved to such a depth I cannot fathom where the beginning differs from the ending.

I fall on my face in humility knowing I deserve none of this. While He loves me beyond my comprehension, I fail to love beyond my own irritation.

Yet, still, grace and mercy flow…

As the raindrop falls freely from the sky, so does this grace and mercy fall from Heaven.

I cannot control it.

And, I don’t want to stop it.

Without it my life would be unbearable,

but with each drop that falls I am filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.