In looking over the fragments of my life I have come to realize that I can choose what to dwell on and what to think about. I can choose to pick through all the broken fragments and pick up the sharp ones that have the ability to cut and hurt me, or I can choose to pick up the pieces that have great beauty with edges that have been softened by time on the seashore of my life. It is as if God has washed them over like pieces of glass on the seashore, their edges smoothed by the tumbling of time and by His embrace.

I like art and as a child I liked putting together paper mosaics to make pictures out of what otherwise would be considered “just colored paper,” or scrapes of paper for the trash can. Who could have imagined one could create great beauty out of things that seemed so cheap and ordinary and ready for the trash can. Still, you can learn to take the pieces that no one else wanted and create a beautiful picture with it. It didn’t have to be paper, it could have been other things to create a masterpiece of unbelievable color, things others would consider worthless, fragments of glass, rocks, wood shavings, and more. To me, those things create a beautiful pictures like stained or fused glass with beautiful colors that help bring restfulness and quiet to the deeper parts of me in tumultuous times. Deep rich colors or soft pale ones that flow into each other like a morning sunrise, such great beauty by the hand of God. I don’t do it often enough.

My life is rich with the colors of heaven that God has provided. During times of pain I would hardly see the why or purpose and I wondered if he cared. Years later down the road I look back and I still where I sinned and where God faithfully met me. I didn’t see those times as colors then. There were broken hopes and shattered dreams along the way in my life and I clung to the fragments even when God asked me to give Him the pieces. I stubbornly clung to them because they represented what I thought I had and they were greater to me than what I already knew, never realizing that God wanted to use all of it to create something good in me and show me the majesty of His artwork in my life.

Today I realized I have recently been looking back at the fragments of my life and I have found small pieces of great beauty that have deep meaning. Looking them over I see individual beauty that when combined with other pieces makes a beautiful picture. The pieces that are sharp edged have a place but I handle them with great care because although they inflict pain God has used them to create the whole picture but I can choose what I use and what I dwell on. It is with great joy that I look back at tiny pieces that now bring great joy. I find myself thankful that God doesn’t make mistakes and thankfully he is helping me to create a beautiful mosaic of my life, one I hope that brings Him glory.

I thought I would list some of my favorite books that have helped me the most in the last few years that have helped me the most through some difficulties I have encountered. Most of them were recommended by Christian counselors and all of them are Christian books.

• The Wounded Heart and Journal by Dan Allender
• The Healing Path and Journal by Dan Allender
• Attachments: Why You Love, Feel, and Act the Way You Do by Dr. Tim Clinton and Dr. Gary Sibcy
• The Sacred Romance and journal by John Eldridge and Brent Curtis
• The Journey of Desire and journal by John Eldridge
• When God Weeps by Joni Eareckson Tada
• A Path Through Suffering by Elisabeth Elliot
• Where is God When It Hurts by Phillip Yancey
• Wasting Time With God by Klaus Issler

Thankfully, God met me in my times of crisis, sometimes with counselors, sometimes with friends and often by books, many times with pen in hand working through the difficulties He entrusted me with. His faithfulness is steadfast no matter what I am going through. He has carried through the hard times and encouraged me when I would have rather given up. His word proclaims that He is faithful and so He is. I hope that you will see that too for yourself.

Lori

Yes, a lot of things happen between here and there. So much, in fact that we miss the most important pieces. It is so easy to get caught up with where we are now and where we were then. The fact is that in between those places is where the valuable and the good happen that make life’s lessons worth going through. Mountain top view don’t happen without a lot of climbing  and the beauty of rivers won’t be seen on the mountain top. It is the in between living that makes the grandure happen. It is amazing what we will go through just to get a glimpse of what we think will be wonderful and it only last a second or two. I think of the in between places of Jesus’ sojourn on earth. There was a lot of things that happened on the way to the places He went to, a lot of praying, a lot of traveling with others and alone with the Father. Before you get to do something you have to get there and learn how to do it and it all takes a certain amount of time, which if we are in a hurry we will not learn to enjoy the process.

I want to go from picking out acrylic paints to a beautiful picture without what seems like the trouble of learning how and making mistakes that seem so wasteful but are really very necessary to the process. I know how to knit but not very well because I do not want to walk through the process of learning and making mistakes. I hate making mistakes. It means going back, repeating steps and learning all over again how to do it right. The process of drawing takes a willingness to continue to try to learn to see progress. It is something I must be willing to do in order to see on paper what I can see in my mind and heart. It isn’t easy.

Those places in between here and there are full of difficult things. When I look at Jesus’ life in the bible we see the highlights but tucked in between are the places where He got to be alone, where no one recorded the hardships, the whispered moments with God, the waiting time on the way to somewhere doing what one has to do to get anywhere, He walked and it took time. Somehow I suspect that time was precious time. In between time for me is where things happen. It is on the way to where God is taking me and even though things are often quite difficult it is something that I choose to savor, where I look back and am grateful for the specialness of those times. I forget often and then God quietly reminds me.

The special relationship that David had with God, was that born in the in between places while waiting for God’s word to him that he was to be king. Hiding and caves don’t seem like places that are all that special. What is so special about running, hiding, fighting, and waiting? Joseph between the dreams and the being a powerful man in Egypt was a time noted of God’s kindness to him. No mountain top view, no mighty rushing river, just hardship, false accusations, mistreatment, and dark, dank prison cells were his in between places. Closeness to God, I wonder could it be born in the sea of adverse circumstances that seem strangely cruel at times? One minute things look like they are going well and the next a strange twist of events lands us in a place we didn’t want to go.

Perhaps it is a holy invitation to walk with God through an archway into another place in your life, rather like a journey, what came before is still part of your experience but through that archway is sort of like going from the wardrobe in a big house, into a new land where new adventures await you but just like in Narnia it isn’t always fair or good. There is something special going on that we cannot see and being held by God is not always obvious to us. What makes it special is that it is uniquely individual to each of us fellow sojourners and what others can see and we cannot doesn’t always help us as we go.

If you are like me you tend to forget that He is walking through the whole thing with you but when I remember that He really is doing things on my behalf it changes me from deep inside and I find that I have been given the gift that is wonderful but not always seen. 

Lori 

Things I like:

I like plaids and paisley, especially during the winter and at Christmas time. I love Nativity scenes and Christmas carols. I love tiny little decorations and tiny village scenes that always fill me with wonder. I love working on those kinds of things. I love watching falling snow that doesn’t end too quickly and stays for days. It muffles the sounds outside from the traffic on the highway and creates a wonderland of beauty that glistens like diamonds in the sun. I love  scarves, knitted hats and boots in all kinds of colors and I especially love mittens, warm ones, none of these cheap thin things that are worthless in the cold. I love horses and sleigh bells and sleds, holly with their red berries that add so much color. I like cold crisp nights and hot chocolate with whipping cream or marshmallows melting on top.

I love to decorate the Christmas tree and then in the evening to just sit and watch the lights and spend time with my family and the Lord. It is great fun to see little children become delighted over seeing a lighted Christmas tree. There fascination with it each little thing. Christmas cookies with decorations and making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers is messy but fun too. Somehow listening to Silent Night always makes me feel calm.

Sometimes I forget all these little things, the things that delight the heart, even when my heart is he heaviest there seems to be comfort in these things because they remind me of how much God has given me, how much I have to be thankful for and His continuing presence in my life. It helps to ease the burdens I carry and I am grateful for that.

All of this little things remind me of what could be. As I look at those little Christmas scenes I feel hope as I peek inside those miniture scenes, I imagine life as it could be or should be or what heaven will be like with Jesus. I realize His kindness in placing within me things that I enjoy, little things, like colors of plaids, or scarves, or how heaven can shine into a dark world and the tiniest bit of God’s light and love shows up even in this dark world with its sorrows. He gives us reminders of His deep care for us individually and He is so kind.

Lori

The last ladies event I went to there were people who worked hard to set up the event before hand. I am not talking about those who planned it or anticipated going to it but the ones who came in when no one else even gave it a second thought.  The people sponsoring the event planned it all out including the things we never give a second thought to. They usually have custodians for this part. They show up unseen, they sweep and mop gym floors or vacuum and dust for long perionds of time. They clean the kitchen floors, remove trash and replace trash cans with clean liners and set up just as many as you need. They roll in round tables, carry in long ones and set them in just the right places and clean them off. They bring in chairs from all over the building and set them in just the right places. They come in and make sure the kitchen is mopped, cleaned, and making sure that there are towels and aprons, paper towels and soap in the dispenser. Every restroom is cleaned to perfection, the floors, toilets, sinks, faucets and mirrors shine and if there is a lady’s waiting area it is made as beautiful and restful as possible, cleaned to perfection.

During the event the behind the scenes people work, trying hard to work unseen. They remove full trash cans, perpetually clean the restrooms, replacing anything that needs to be replaced. They are available to assist when an item cannot be found or a door cannot be opened. They are most often unnoticed but essential to the success of the event. They are the behind the scenes people. There are usually more than you think.

Hidden away they are still part of the body of Christ, an essential part, that does their job without a lot of recognition. When you leave they clean up all the garbage and take it to the dumpster. They dismantel displays, clear tables, carry out trash, wash tables and chairs and stack them and put them away. They take down tables and move them to the next place they need to go so on Sunday morning you will be able to go to your Sunday school class and it will look good and be clean. Everything will be back to normal as if it never happened, almost like a dream. The next day you will all talk about how great it looked and what an enjoyable time you had. You will pat each other on the back and talk about the beautiful tables never thinking about all the work that someone did so you might have a beautiful table.

 I think that life is like that. We just don’t realize all the seemingly little things that go on that make up our day to day life that are actually big things. God orchestrates the events in our lives and He is at work in all of the behind the scenes events in our lives. Somehow we just don’t notice all the things that He does to make our lives full and interesting. We don’t see the whole set up, we just tend to see what we hope for, the thing that hasn’t happened yet and we look for the things that seem good and fun. Yet even in our hard times are sorrow God is active and present, working in our behalf doing the work we cannot do or that is more than we are able to do. In the hard times of hurt and sorrow the active hand of God has been at work even though in our pain we do not notice it. Sometimes we tend to forget that He is there because things seem to go off so smoothly and we credit others for the wonderful things, not noticing that He is the One who knows all of it, every detail.

I think about how bad I’d feel if no one ever noticed me or the little things that I have done. God notices and He cares. I suspect that He feels the same way we do when no one recognizes His hand in our lives. Does He feel left out? Does He think we don’t care about Him or others? Do we wake up an see all that others are doing for us and acknowledge it or do we just take things for granted? I know I am guilty of that. Are there little things that I could do as part of what God is doing that I don’t want to do because it is an inconvenience for me? Lord God, help me to see both the need and my own heart and see what it is that hurts you and what you want me to do.

Dear Heavenly Father, Help me to have a heart that see beyond the surface to the deeper things that you do for me. Help me to recognize your hand in the behind the scenes events in my own life that I might love you more with a heart that is filled with gratitude.

I ask these things in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

I got up this morning thinking about faith. You can’t move a mountain by standing on top of it looking around, nor can you move a mountain by pushing against it. It takes something far stronger than human effort. It takes faith to move the immoveable and in order to have that kind of faith it takes God.

This Thanksgiving morning there is a beautiful fog outside. I am so glad it is here because it is like a quiet friend who sits with me sharing contentment. It gives me a quiet morning to start my day with.

I have been thinking some more about waiting. Have you ever asked someone in disbelief , “Are you still waiting?” Often the answer is yes and we think to ourselves,  ”I would have quit a long time ago.”  I am thinking of those who do not give up hope as they wait for a loved one to return or those who are willing to sit through something hard and they do it without complaining. It is as if they know something we don’t know and they do not consider the waiting a hardship to be endured but wait with a sense of expectation and patience overtakes them. People may come along and mock and question what they are doing and why they continue to wait for something that seems like it will never happen. If it doesn’t happen, some continue to trust God and serve Him even it what was hoped for never happens.

Perhaps they have learned that joy comes in those times. Maybe their faith arises and increases as they wait and even it they never receive what they have been waiting for we see they they have waited with contentment knowing that God is working on their behalf, believing that the outcome will be good even if it doesn’t turn out the way they  hoped it would. They encourage others in their time of waiting just by their peace. It isn’t that they are not suffering but they seem to just go deeper into Christ and their contentment shows. He becomes more and more who they waiting on and good things come to those who wait in His presence without complaining knowing that God is doing something, creating something and loving them where they are.

Some things are worth waiting for, we wait for a delicious cake to bake. We wait much longer than that for other things that are important to us? It could be waiting on your spouse to return and you don’t know if he will or not. Complaining won’t change a thing. We ask God and then we wait. When He doesn’t answer we think He hasn’t heard us, wait a little longer and we wonder if we have done something wrong, a little longer still and we wonder why we are still waiting often not realizing that God is at work on our behalf and we don’t know the outcome yet because it is in the process. Good things come from waiting. We get to anticipate how God is going to work on our behalf but if we lose our patience our trust goes with it and we end up feeling alone, abandoned by God, not realizing that He is working and it will be far better at the end of our story with God because we will be able to see what He has done. I guess sometimes we find it difficult to depend God because that seems to make us feel vulnerable, it is the best place to be.

Thanksgiving Blessings,

Lori

Waiting. How many of us hate that word? It brings up endless reminders of  long grocery lines, long event lines, long waits at doctor and government offices. There are those long lines at airports and even when you get on the plane you must wait in another long line of jets waiting to take off. Then of course there are those long lines of cars that hardly move at all even though they are on the freeway during rush hour that are going no where.

Then there are those endless waits, like waiting for a doctor’s return call on some test, waiting to see if we made it into the college of our dreams, waiting to see if we got into the nursing program, and waiting for the bell to ring in a school classroom just waiting for the day to end. We wait to see if what we hope for comes to pass. We wait for vacations and pay raises, for news of a loved one, we wait what seems like nine very long months for our babies to get born, and that is only a tiny bit of what we wait for. We groan and complain as if that will make us feel any better or make things hurry any faster and before you know it we are rushing off to the next thing and the thing after that, but we are always waiting and complaining about waiting.

There are some good things about learning to wait PATIENTLY. Waiting brings delights of its own but often we are so busy trying to achieve something that we miss life during the waiting time. A lot of life happens while we wait and often because we are so focused on the getting what we want when we want it that we miss all the living that goes on in between desire and the dream. Too bad that we do. Some of the finer things of life are well worth waiting for and living is what we do between here and there. I guess gratitude is born when we learn to wait patiently. Not too many of us are thankful for the wait times in life, traffic jams or other things keep us feeling like we are missing something and if we just hurry faster we will get to what we are waiting for sooner but that is not true. Even when we get what we were or are waiting for we are still unsettled and unsatisfied so often.

I tend to forget that part of the waiting process is the getting there. Perhaps those are invitations from God to learn to spend time with Him and depend on Him in His time table. Closeness with others is most often born when we are not in a rush, we wait and listen, we talk and share and if we really care about the other person we are willing to listen to them. Good things come from patiently waiting, not complaining waiting. Making pottery is a process, a waiting process, so is sewing, quilting, drawing, painting, and good conversations. Perhaps we manage those things because we are keeping ourselves busy, but what about when there seems to be nothing to do, no where to go and we have to sit it out.

One of the things about not feeling good for a long, long time is that you often can’t sleep very well due to pain or weird things going on in your body. When everyone in your house is asleep and you can’t find a way to get comfortable and rest, nor can you get busy and do a lot of things because people are sleeping you learn that you are in a waiting mode. Waiting to see if you will get better, feel better, or if you can fall asleep and when all of that fails and you end up sitting up on the couch with more time on your hands in which you can do nothing to make yourself feel better you learn a lot about waiting more than patiently. You learn that in your impatience you can learn to be patient. You find you can tell God your feelings and ask him to give you His peace while you are waiting and you get to learn to be with God, not rushing, just being with Him. He issues invitations in such times for us to know Him, to sit with Him, to invite Him into our impatience and show us how to be with Him. There is a lot of good things to learn during such times, waiting patiently is a gift from Him to us.

Learning to wait on Him patiently.

Lori

In our state, elections are coming up on November 3^rd. Normally, voting is something I would consider doing quite seriously but not so much anymore. The last few elections here in this state have just been a hoax. We say it is important to get out there and vote and I used to be one of those people who said that, but not anymore. There was a time when I felt that I could vote and count on the integrity of the system to manage to correctly count votes. This is not true anymore, either. One recount, then another and another until whoever has the most manpower and sneakiness wins and what started out right ends up wrong, integrity is lost, not just by those running for office but also within the judicial system as these things are taken to court where a judge decides elections from his office in another county far from where the real issue lies.

I have looked at the voters guides sent out by the state recently and on the inside I am cringing, trying to decide if it is worth my time. In our state we seem to have a problem with election outcomes. The people vote it in, the courts throw it out. So they try again and the next time around they will find another way to silence the voice of the people.

How many times will the senate, congress, and courts refuse to allow us to vote on critical issues and force their unrealistic opinions on the people of the United States? What is the point of voting if your voice is not heard? What will the American people do? Will they continue to allow the government to decide for them what is right and wrong or will the American people discover for themselves that they need to decide not only how they want things to go but what will be the long term impact on society as a whole. Will it be for selfish self interest groups or will it be the heart of the people that has vision enough to see that everything we decide now we will reap the long term effects of and so will our children and grandchildren and the world?

I just turned 55 and I realized that I have never really tried the many potential gifts and talents that God may have given me and I will never really know if I had them or not unless I get busy and try. As you can see this leaves me with what is left of the rest of my life to explore. I feel like a child that has been turned loose in a toy store of imagination. I have missed so much all because I was too afraid or I was lost in the “should’s and should not’s” of day to day living. I turned the corner onto “I Don’t Have Time Street” or else I was hiding behind the childhood curtain of “What if I fail?” and the shame that seems to come out of nowhere thinking that somebody else might see me, sort of like when you realize that people are watching you. You can be performing a lovely dance until someone steps into the room and sees you and you feel embarrassed.

So, I really have no valid excuse for not attempting to try my hand at things when I feel inspired to explore something new, those “I wish I had” and “if only’s” will begin to fall away when it comes to trying something new. It probably will work if I make a sign to put by front door to remind me that this applies to all of life, whether it is a needed apology or an attempt at artistry. My “I never really tried” statements will turn into thanksgiving to the God who created me for His glory.

Blessings,

Lori