Evening Gift — {Moonrise in Vermont}

The lesser light was great last night, governing the dark with unusual glory.  I pulled off the road to watch it rise, deep and full and heavy.  Others followed, trying to capture the weight of the moment.  There we were, three cars deep on the side of the road, caught in an evanescent moonrise.

I remembered words written by John Piper:  “Do people go to the Grand Canyon to increase their self-esteem? Probably not. This is, at least, a hint that the deepest joys in life come not from savoring the self, but from seeing splendor. And in the end even the Grand Canyon will not do. We were made to enjoy God.”

Did we pull of the road to gaze at ourselves?  Oh, no.  We saw splendor.  Suddenly, that moment was all we had.  Never again will we see that moon, the way it looked with the slender leafless branches silhouetted in the foreground, the way it lit up all the earth in its path, the way that it reflected the glory of its Creator.

But in the end, even April’s “pink moon” will not do.  We were made to worship the moon Maker, the One Who breathed a world into existence, the One who is light. 

Photo credits:  Joanne Delabruere (my little cell phone camera just didn’t do it justice!).

Lessons from the Yellow Bike

On a gray day it leaned there against a worn brick wall.  If there ever was a salute to spring, it was this.  A bright, yellow bike.  It stood as a beacon of “happy” in the middle of a tired and colorless cityscape.

Amazing what some spray paint and a few artificial flowers can do.

Sometimes I feel like this is what my life needs–just some bright paint to cover over all the rust and ugly.  And perhaps some flowers to tuck behind my ear.

But as pretty as a bright yellow bike might be on a cloudy day, it’s really only good for decoration.   It’s not particularly useful.  There is no push in the petals, no fragrance in the flowers.

And my life won’t be useful, either, if it’s all covered with veneer.  The Lord has been using some deep sorrows recently to reveal my heart to me and make me more and more “real.”  It’s like the Skin Horse says in one of my favorite children’s books:

“Being ‘Real’ doesn’t happen all at once.  You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” ― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit.  

It’s hard to be “here” when it hurts.  Sometimes I want to run away from my troubles.  But the Lord is using even (especially) my sorrows to make me more pliable, to soften the edges, to make me more resilient, and to remind me of His satisfying presence in the middle of it all.

Fifteen

It figures that she’d come in March.  March, when the earth is mud and the air still smarts and we all want spring.  I guess our Father knew we needed something to celebrate.

This one, who is everyone’s friend, who lives large and sings loud and we all know when she’s home—she came in March.

This one, who is all curls and freckles.  This one who loves dancing and music, who laughs at the table, but still cries when she’s tired—she came in March.

We’ve always called her our quirky one, but indeed how we needed this wisp of serendipity when it was all gray and brown and lifeless.

There are pieces of my heart that hold onto that eight pound gift—remembering how she came to us fast and frantic, and that should have been our first clue.  Joy came in the morning that day.

Fifteen years ago, life stretched out in front of her.   She was all mystery, but all loved.  But now we know her and love her all the more.  How quickly the years have gone and now the wings are getting stronger, stretching, poising to strain for a distant sky.

But my mother’s heart remembers when I was stronger than her–and how she liked to be carried and held.  Outstretched arms and an upturned face were her morning offerings.  My heart still carries her close, and always will, but only One can keep her soul.   May you, my dear daughter, find rest in God alone.

Happy Birthday, to our girl.  We are so glad you came. 

(**hours of hair straightening have yielded a “not quite true” representation, but she is a beauty nonetheless!)

 

Winter’s Gift

Today the white hung heavy on every branch.  I’ve lived here, half tilt between the equator and the arctic circle, for fourteen years.  And I’ve learned that snow has different temperaments.  On some days it is fluttering and wispy.  On others it can be icy and thin.  Or heavy and thick.   It can sting sideways through the air on a stiff clipper.  Or it can fall slow and silent in the night, waking us with wonder as the dawn becomes day.

And the joyous surprise of it all really is this–every time it snows, it is a fresh memorial to grace.  Because though my sins are scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. 

I feel like a fledgling as I try to understand the infinity of His grace . . . the depth of His forgiveness . . . the completeness of the “Tetelestai!” cried on the cross.  This “whiter than snow” absolution softens my soul and reminds me that I am pure and clean and dearly loved. 

This rehearsal of mercy–it is winter’s gift.

 

The Naming of the New — {Today}

My friend Kim–sweet Kim with her gifts of encouragement–she gives her years a name.  Because the years add up, day after day, to equal a life which is fitting us for an eternity.

When I first started this blog, I set out to do the same.  Now I look back on the history of it and see what the Lord has done through the words He gave me for each year.  It is a way to trace his grace through the “ordinariness” of a small life, but a life lived for Him.

My first year was named for beholding.  Because beholding is becoming and I wanted to see Him more clearly–to see the sacred beautiful even in the quotidian movement of my days.  I wanted to see more clearly the one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all, and I longed to be made more like Him.

Then I needed a year of sanctuary–intentional seeking of Him.  I needed it more than I could have known.  I made it a point to curl up on a lambskin blanket and to be with God.  As I really stop to ponder that, it undoes me.  That I can be with God, through His dear Son’s love for me and vindication of the wrath that I was certainly due.  Unfathomable.

Now here is 2013–tabula rasa all waiting to be filled up.  And how I long to fill it, through His power, with faith working through love.  This is the only thing that really counts as I live in the now.  As I live today.

So if I were picking a word, and I guess I am, that word would be:  ”Today.”  Because I want to fully live in the moments He has given me, right now.  I don’t want to be all good intentions and no action.  I want to really love, today, even though I might risk being hurt or misunderstood.  I want to share His word with passion, and have a fresh excitement for the power of the gospel, because today is the day of salvation.  

And I want to live in the good of daily manna.  He gives grace for today.  

And I don’t want to worry about tomorrow, because today has enough trouble of its own. True confessions, though:  I sometimes wish that each day wasn’t filled with trouble (or evil, as some translations say).  But, alas, the glorious Day of all things good still awaits and I must keep my expectations aligned accordingly.

So there we have it–a year of todays.  A year of choices to love, to repent, to forgive, to read and memorize, to pray, to make dinner and do laundry and hug my children.  May all of our todays, dear friends, be filled with a million ways to trace His grace.

New Year’s Eve

It’s New Year’s Eve.  In some ways it seems arbitrary that today is a significant marker of time.  It is a day like any other.

But we have made it a day to reflect, to review the days gone by, to evaluate where we are on a road marked with a few defining moments, but mostly ordinary ones.  And we also get ready to turn the page on a new year.  And, truth is, we long for the fresh start.  We yearn to open our eyes to the new mercies.

I think about the events of the year just lived–the way the world opened up for my oldest daughter as she traveled on a mission trip to Africa.

The way that my heart grieved and rejoiced all at the same time as I heard my son’s name called to receive his high school diploma.

There was the soul-searching of a decision to place a “not-quite-teenager” in public school.  There were teeth lost, braces removed, sports practiced, dances rehearsed.

There were driving permits.  Driver’s licenses.  Boundaries stretched in new ways.  And often it just drives me to my knees, which is where the year is really lived.

Though certainly the year for us has been filled with measures of joy and sorrow, I offer a prayer of humble thanks for every good and perfect gift that has come from my Father’s hand.  In the beautiful things, I see His wisdom.  In the quiet moments, I take joy in the sweetness of His presence.  In the laughter at the table, I am filled up with the measure of His kindness.  In the hard things, I long for all to be made right at His coming.

Yes, “I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”  Habakkuk 3:18

Christmas Quiet

We walked in the woods today–just the two of us–and I was struck with the wonder of it all.  This grand creation and the perfect order of things.  This gift from Creator’s hand.  His sustaining power to spin His spheres.  Yet the Maker of all came down, knit in a virgin’s womb, born on a stable floor.  Poor, fragile, infant Flesh felt the sting of His first breath and the roll of hunger in His tiny belly.  Indeed He emptied Himself of all but love.

And this One, the One who Mary cradled in her teenage arms:  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Christmas

We need Christmas.  We need it in all of its raw and crude reality.  We need the squalling, wrinkled, tiny Child who was born that we might live.  We need the One who came down, the Bread of Life laid in a feed box.

We need the “yes” and “amen” of promises kept.  We need the place where blood and water spilled on the straw.  We need His first cry, His lungs filling with Judean air.

We need His one perfect life.

We need His atoning sacrifice.  We need the place where blood and water flowed down his side.  We need His last breath: “It is finished.”

And we need His resurrection, in all its Sunday morning glory.  

We need the promise of peace in a place surging with grief.  We need the hope of heaven.

We need Christmas.  Especially today, we need Christmas.  

The {Not So Perfect} Christmas Tree

Christmas tree:  check.

We live in a the land of tree farms filled with rows of fertilized, cultivated, manicured trees.  For years, we’ve selected just that.  A perfect Christmas tree.

But I’ve always wanted a “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree.  Untamed.  Unpruned.  Perhaps even unloved by anyone but me.

So this year, the children finally relented and let me have my tree.  We didn’t go to the tree farm.  We went to the home of a friend and we edged down a thorn-covered slope in search of a “not-so-perfect” Christmas tree.  Snow had fallen in the night and the trees were deep in white.  We shook the trunks.  We evaluated the height, breadth and color of each prickly balsam.  Finally we picked “the one.”

Aren’t trees a lot like us?  Pressing up and on in the midst of thorns.  Bending in the storms, yet standing tall in grace?  Just waiting to become a thing of beauty?

We labored to get the tree home, and I got a case of hives as I strung the lights on the branches.  But when the Christmas music played while the children hung the ornaments, I knew we had just the right tree.  The kind that would be perfectly content in our not-so-perfect home.  Yes, all it needed was a little love! 

A Thankful Heart

There is gathering of graces in the sum of it all.  When I add up the days, the hours, the moments of my small life, I trace this thread of a thankful heart.

Sometimes it has been a thin thread–when I struggle to see the beauty in the ways that God is weaving it all together.  Because the longer I live and the more people I know, the more I know that life is hard.  In the dark hours, thanksgiving is a choice.

But then there are so many times when it flows full and free.  When my daughter is running along the beach with a friend.  Or when there is laughter at the table.  When the school gets done with cheerful hearts.  Or when I share a sweet hour with a friend.

A prayer was spoken on my wedding day–that the Lord would give enough trial to remind us of our need of Him, and enough joy to sustain us in the years.  This keeps ringing true, and thanks in everything is the way to keep my eyes riveted on the Giver of all good gifts.

And the dearest gift of all is the gift of His Son, the gift of forgiveness, the gift of His love.  I looked into the beautiful face of a friend today; she asked me to “put words” on the Father’s love for the Son.  Are there words deep enough?  “Inexhaustible.”  “Perfect.” “Measureless.”  “Full.”  “Free.”  We have this undeniable yet unimaginable truth spoken in our Savior’s voice:  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you!  Oh believers, may we ever be a thankful people!