In the Twinkling.....

“I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dropped it carelessly, Ah! I didn't know, I held opportunity.”

~Hazel Lee

            “In the twinkling of an eye…..”  Aaahhhh…….I’ve held many moments in my hands and they have seemingly slipped by.  It is one thing to dwell on the past, however, it’s important to not let those who have gone on be forgotten.  Never forget.  It truly is more than just a common slogan.  Choosing to remember those that have traveled from one life to another.  Holding on.  Letting go.  We need to do a little of both……and both are equally difficult to do.

      I’m rambling all over the place tonight and choosing not to really edit this….so bear with me!  I have been known by my friends to be somewhat of a pack rat….a hoarder.  No, not to the extent I need to go on a television show for an intervention, but there is something about each thing that has come into my possession. They are linked to those who gave it to me, or used those things at one time.  A time that might have seemed simpler, yet really wasn’t. 

      I’ve said ‘so long’ to many friends and family along these 39 years of mine.  Instead of burying the memories of long ago, I let them linger in my every day life.  It is a fine line between continuously grieving and honoring one’s life.  A reminder of the brevity of life, this wondrous gift we’ve been given on this earth for only a certain amount of time. 

      I guess I am particularly nostalgic today because it is a day a small friend should have been celebrating his birthday.  He hasn’t had a birthday on this earth since 2005 because someone took his life in the summer of 2006.  Those who knew him, knew his smile and his zest for life…and FOOD!  He loved to eat!  His life goes on in another world, but I miss him being here with us.  It’s a reminder we need to love and cherish those around us as much as we can while we still have the opportunity.  Life is short.  And yet…..it never ends.  I’m thankful my heart is safe in my Creator’s hands.  I’m thankful He is patient as I struggle with the Why’s.  I’m thankful He is big enough to handle my sorrows.  I’m thankful this little guy is sitting in His lap tonight celebrating his birthday in Heaven. I’m thankful life goes on and I will be reunited with those that have passed on.  

       Christmas is a time that is often difficult to get through for many of us, including myself.  Celebrating my Lord’s birth gets wound and tangled in the web of the memories and the pain….pain in losing my sister many years ago, a time for others to remember their loved ones that are no longer able to grace us with their physical presence.  It’s ok to remember…but not to get stuck in the pain.  So, we move on….yet we hold on….and choose to remember and be inspired by those who made a difference in our lives.   And who’s made the biggest difference in my life?  Jesus.  He not only passed through this life, he died, and he rose again, never to die again.  That is the hope I live with.  He helps me go on.  He can help you too.  You never get ‘over’ these things.  But, with His help, He helps you move through them.  It’s a process.

       So, it’s not necessarily holding on to the past, but it is choosing to remember those that shared our lives for a mere breadth of a second.  Acknowledging they made an impact, and they were loved.  Let them still teach us today.  If you listen closely, you can still hear them.  Don’t shut them out, don’t pretend they never existed, just to shield yourself from the pain.  Open the flood gates, and if you cry, you cry.  It means you’re alive.  Embrace it.

“There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.” 

~ Brennan Manning

Choking

Choking

As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.” 
― Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

“To choke.”  Its definition includes words such as inability to breathe, airway becoming obstructed, movement becoming restricted or impossible….

  My mother did the Heimlich maneuver on me many years ago after she saw I was choking on a piece of a Twizzler.  That was a scary moment indeed! She and my sister, Leslie, were in the kitchen with their backs to me; we had all been laughing about something and then I started choking on the candy in my mouth.  I began to stomp my feet and bang on the table with my hands because I could not make any noise with my voice.  My mother turned around and quickly leapt into action and saved my life. 

Today, not only this story comes to mind when I hear the word, but daily as I walk through my many flower beds.  I keep an eye out for those pesky weeds that love to creep silently along the stems of the fragile flowers growing.  They grow by the dozens and are quite crafty and seem to know exactly which direction to grow.  I’ve seen a small weedy vine trail along for a few feet before reaching a certain bush or flower.  Then it grows up the stem and gently, at first, wraps itself around the stem until it grows all the way up around the flower at the top.  Over time, if not noticed, it will choke the life out of the flower and kill it altogether, then move on to the next victim.   I was looking at my Clematis recently and starting noticing that there was a slight difference in the color and shape of the leaves and vine growing there.  Besides the original plant, there was also a giant weed and it was choking the life out of the real plant!  It was very deceiving.  It was also very difficult to remove; difficult to tell the difference between the real plant and the weed.  I wondered at times if I was ripping part of my real Clematis away instead of the weed.  I remained hopeful as I tore most of it away and decided to start with just a few tendrils at the bottom that I knew were authentic.  I would rather start over fresh, instead of end up with a trellis of weeds later.   

I can’t help but see the spiritual parallels here.  There are many things creeping along and wrapping themselves around us, just waiting to control and choke the life out of us.  Those things can even be good things!  There has to be a balance sought in how we choose to spend our time.  I find myself continually in rebellion to the things that seem to keep me in chaos.  These are good things that I am doing, things that are helpful, things that benefit those around me, they are also things that could easily consume me and eventually choke the life out of me.  This is not the abundant life we were called to live.  There has to be courage to say “no”… even to good things.  Continually being in motion…..this cannot possibly benefit anyone in the long run.  There has to be time to examine our hearts, what we are doing, why we are doing it.  There is only one me, there is only one life on this Earth that I have been given.

Ephesians 5:15-17New International Version (NIV)

¹⁵ Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

Oh how I wish I could say I have perfected this!  But I’m going to be real with you.  I struggle with finding balance.  I struggle with always wanting to finish everything perfectly, getting all the ducks lined up, getting the details straight.  Not just for the sake of the work itself, I see the purpose behind it.  I care deeply about what I do.  I also miss out on other things because I get wrapped up so much in the details.  I’ve been praying more on this subject.  Or should I say, He’s been bringing it more to my attention.  When I get super busy, I lose out on the relationships around me, and frankly, I lose out on the relationship that my Father longs to have with me.  No one wins here.  Not one.  I get tired, I get cranky, I start looking at things in the wrong way, getting too critical, etc etc etc.  The list goes on and on.  Then when my guard is down, boom, something happens, and the negative self talk begins.  Instead of knowing and believing who I am in Christ, I am confused and tired.  Has this happened to anyone else?  I need to keep working for my Lord, yes, but I also need to not forget that I want to know Him personally, and He wants to know me too. 

 Sometimes it takes stomping feet and banging on tables to get our attention, to bring us back to where we need to be. Weeds will silently climb around our lives and begin to get a grip on us and before we know it, we feel paralyzed and out of breath.  It will be difficult to tell who you really are in Christ.   The imposter is very eloquent in his ways, in deceiving you; making us feel inadequate, useless, worn.  You begin to lose just pieces of yourself at first, then yourself entirely.  Just as my Mom quickly moved to action, our Abba is quick to take action when we ask for His help. He furiously longs for us to seek Him first, talk to Him first before we allow the deluge of details to take over in each of our days. 

Yes, we are to do good while we can do it.  Yes, we are called to love our neighbors.  Yes, we are called to be servants to our fellow human beings, as well as take care of our animals around us.  But we also are called to be in communion with our First Love, our Creator, our Savior. 

So, yes.  I rebel the whirl wind that swirls around me.  I love what I do, I love my community, but I must love my Lord first and take time to savor my time with Him, then I can serve those around me even better.

There will always be something out there that needs to be done.  Someday, I will stand in front of the One who made me and account for my time.  I pray that it will show well served.  I also pray that the person standing in front of me will not be a Beautiful Stranger, but Someone I have been cultivating a relationship with my entire life. Someone that says, “Welcome Home,” instead of “I don’t know who you are.”  I want to be consumed by Him first.  Everything else second.  It just makes sense.  It moves me from the thought of just doing good things, to more of who Christ is transforming me to be.  It is a much more authentic way of being. 

So today, I am not advocating selfishness, but I am advocating self care.  Do a spiritual check.  You are the only one who can do it for you.  Are you choking?  Do you feel like you can’t breathe?  Are you consumed with the things going on around you….even good things?  Take time to find some balance.  Reconnect with the One who has your personal best at heart.  Proclaim the Light, live in the Light.  

What Have We Become?

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ~ Thomas Merton

I was awake early this morning with many tasks to complete.  I received a text from a new friend concerned because she had heard there had been a shooting with fatalities on my street.  I had not heard of this.  I was outside reading her text; my street and neighborhood were quiet, and the only action I had seen were buses traveling to pick up children who were anxious for school to be over, and adults who were heading to work.  As for me, I had been kneeling quietly at my tree in my front yard pulling weeds away that had overgrown my flowers.  As I pulled the tattered gloves off of my hands, I noticed there were three fingers that were covered and embedded in mud.  Yep, you guessed it.  There were three holes I had noticed earlier in the fingers of the garments.  I quickly checked the text from my friend and then looked up a local news station on my phone as I sat on the step outside.  I pulled up the story she was referring to and shook my head.  It wasn't even 9 AM and yet more lives lost in our city due to more violence.  I quickly responded to her text and assured her that the shooting was not on my block, but several blocks north of me, so far up that I could not see or hear any of the emergency personnel working.  I thanked her for caring enough to check on me and she responded by saying she felt bad for starting my day off with negativity.  I could only respond that my day started off early with pup kisses and that now I knew what God wanted me to pray for that day.  She responded back with a prayer request for her.  What a privilege for someone I barely know to ask me to pray for them! 

How dismal we can be sometimes in our outlook. Just like those three fingers that were muddied from the holes in my glove, sometimes we get holes in our souls.  We allow the negativity to seep in and muddy us on the inside, tainting our vision and our view.  Instead, we should allow it to point us back to our Father for direction.  Yep, still working on this one too….big time!

I loved listening to the music of DC Talk growing up.  Ok, who am I fooling?  I still love it, even though those artists have since split and formed other groups of their own.  They had a song called, “What Have We Become?”  I made the mistake of looking at the Facebook comments under the article about the murders this morning, and I found myself asking that same question.  People are so quick to judge and blame and that is a HUGE source of irritation to me.  There is definitely a time and place to evaluate and break things down, so we can improve our processes in different areas, but we can go too far in the fault finding.  OK, my soapbox speech for the day is….drum roll please……. The answers do not lie solely in gun control debates, or in pointing fingers of city leaders not doing enough, or even in the seemingly crime ridden areas of our city.  While conversations about these topics are all good and do need to be discussed, we need to look closer, we need to look deeper…..not at just what is happening around us and how others are responding to it…….but taking a good look at ourselves.  Why do we always expect someone else to be the problem solvers in our society?  

Where do we place our hope?  Instead of pointing fingers and expecting others to solve our problems, why can't the change start with us….one person at a time?  What kind of neighbor are we?  Are we invested in our fellow human beings?  A great example is last night when my car failed to start several times at a park with my pups.  A few young men stopped to help me out (yes, I do realize how old I sound in wording it like that), and didn't leave until friends had arrived to help me out.  I gave them a huge thanks.  It planted a tiny hope that kindness still existed among strangers. 

It seems simple, really, but we live in a day where we are so individualized, that we hardly stop to speak to other people any more….use common courtesy with strangers, like please and thank you.  I stayed outside intentionally this morning to say good morning to the men who picked up my trash and hauled it away.  I also intentionally told them thank you and that I hoped their day was starting off right.  You know what they told me?  They said it already had because someone went out of their way to thank them.  One person at a time….you never know the difference you can make in someone’s day by stopping and being intentional with them. 

        Of course, I am not asking people to go out and do things outside of the realm of safety with people we do not know…..but will say that I dare you today to go out of your way for someone.  I have the hope of Christ in me.  Isn't it about time that others noticed?  Do you have that same hope?  If they can't see the difference in me, then I am a very poor ambassador indeed for the First Love of my life.  It’s time to stop expecting everyone else to do it all for us.  Time to step it up….time to back up our words with action.  If we truly love our Lord, then we are called to love our neighbors too.  ALL of them.  All of the time.  Nope, I’ve not perfected it either, I’ve got a long ways to go, but that doesn't mean I should just sit back and cast blame when things go wrong in my city and community.  It means, where have we gone wrong?  What have we become?  What does God want us to become?  What will it take for us to get there?  Take the first step, do something today, even if it’s giving a smile, a handshake, a thanks, a prayer.  We’ve got our work cut out for us.

We're called to be salt and light by the Maker of Heaven and Earth.  I'll leave you with HIS words today.  Let yourself be loved today by the Giver of Life....then pass it on.  (I added the bold and caps for emphasis): 

¹³ “YOU ARE the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

¹⁴ “YOU ARE the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven.” ~ Matthew 5:13-16

Three Little Dots…

          I use these a lot when I write, type, etc…. For me, it’s a way of shortening something that might be too long to type.  Or a way to take a pause and let something really sink in for a moment before I go on with my thought.  For something so small, they can represent something that is quite long and meaningful….like our lives.   We are born…we die.  Those three little dots represent a whole lot of living right there!

          Some lives around me have been quite short.  Some lives are 100+ years old, and still going strong!  I often find we don’t look deeper than the surface of those around us.  Sometimes we don’t even look deep into ourselves, for fear of what we may see.  Kind of like looking in a mirror for a very long time.  Staring so long you can almost see all the way into your soul.  What do you see in yourself?  What do others see within you?  What do you see in others?

          When we take the time to observe and ponder our own life story, are we all truly living the life God wants us to have?  Are our lives so hectic that we can’t see straight?  Or are we so bored out of our minds that we can hardly stand it?  Are we living WITH purpose?  Are we living ON purpose?  Jeremiah stated it well, “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” (Jer. 20:9).  Do we live with that same kind of passion within us?

Time is fleeting and time….is not always promised. Living with the knowledge that we don’t know how much time we have on this side is both a blessing and a curse because it gives me a sense of urgency to live all of the life that God has for me…because this life is a gift and it should be lived to its fullest…it is a very precious thing indeed.

Some might think because life could end tomorrow, so why bother?  Why put one foot in front of the other every day and live the struggle?  What a beautiful struggle it can be.  Because He wants us to live, He has a purpose for us in each and every singe day, and by our choice, we have to be focused on that grand opportunity to keep moving forward.