Here and there and...

...a few slices of life around me (in no particular order) the past ten days that I've been missing from action.

It's been ten days of fog and sunshine and precious time with dear friends and family and prayer time and writing time and waiting time and time to wander.

There are more days just like them to come, Lord willing.

Until next week, I leave you with these reminders:

"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them"

A. A. Milne, Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh



 THE FLOWER by Alfred, Lord Tennyson 
Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, The people said, a weed.  To and fro they went Thro' my garden-bower, And muttering discontent Cursed me and my flower.  Then it grew so tall It wore a crown of light, But thieves from o'er the wall Stole the seed by night.  Sow'd it far and wide By every town and tower, Till all the people cried`Splendid is the flower.'  Read my little fable: He that runs may read. Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed.  And some are pretty enough, And some are poor indeed; And now again the people Call it but a weed.

Sun kissed...

 

























Though I'm quick to say that we don't live in paradise, my husband is quite certain that Heaven will be just like Florida - without hurricanes and mosquitoes.

July or August, he'd get quite the argument from me, but on sun-kissed days like these I'm inclined to agree.

When it's cool and sunny and the birds are singing and the flowers - wild - are blooming and all is well with me and mine, it's easy to be agreeable and gratitude spilling.

The real test - the challenge for me - is this. When it's hot and humid, and the cat throws up on the carpet, and I drop the yogurt on the just-mopped kitchen floor and all is not well with me and mine. Does gratitude spill then?

Have I truly cultivated an eye for life's mercies? Will I still count gifts - name them, photograph them, list them, sing them, speak them, paint them - on difficult, less-than-stellar, horrible, no-good days?

In the quiet...

...with an unusual abundance of contemplative moments - from backyard swinging to waiting room sitting - I've been reading and studying and listening and wondering.

And sometimes carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.



Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
~ Helen Lemmel

The "things of earth" can be heartbreakingly heavy at times.

As David Murray recently wrote in I'm suffering from sorrow overload, not only do we care about hurting people around us that we know and love well, technology brings an awareness of pain and brokenness and grief beyond our reach - and often I'm burdened by long lists of suffering people.

Sorrow overload, indeed.



When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
~ Psalm 34:17

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote...

It is actually more important to be broken bread and poured-out wine in the area of intercession than in our personal contact with others.

And so I do the only thing I can with such sorrow - confident that my prayers are heard - I place these long lists of suffering people before the Lord - knowing that He is good and just and faithful and strong and mighty to save.  




And I pray I'll keep my eyes on Jesus - His mercies, His glory, His grace - and opportunities to be broken bread and poured-out wine in a season of contemplative moments.




(The grasshopper is for you, dear Allie.)

Please forgive...

...my shameless display of color and sunshine and iced lattes on the backyard swing while I slowly savor Ann Voskamp's beautiful, heart-rending, soul-satisfying One Thousand Gifts. 


I often worry about those "shameless displays" of what I call lovely.

I worry you'll think I live in paradise. And I struggle with how to say that without seeming ungrateful for our home and where we live - or disrespectful of those who live around us here on Pollywog Creek. But, I do not live in paradise. That you need to know.


I worry that my photos will plant seeds of discontent, when it's my desire to encourage - to "cultivate an eye for life's mercies" - right where we are. To discover and wonder at the "strange glory of ordinary things" waiting to be uncovered and touched and heard and admired with gratefully contented hearts.

What I hope to communicate by counting gifts with photos, Ann Voskamp inspires most eloquently with words and lists and her own stunning photography. I've been meandering through One Thousand Gifts a chapter at a time. Distracted by the glorious painted buntings and the early blooming azaleas and the mockingbird who serenades me from the crest of the honeysuckle vine, I'm in no hurry to read to the end. It's the perfect pace for Bloom, the (in)courage book club.*

What about you? What are you savoring these days? And how are you counting His gifts?

"I must try and cultivate an eye for life's mercies...And life, while it has its ugly swamps, its vile weeds, and its sharp thorns, has always its fair flowers to charm the eye with their beauty, or to fill the air with their fragrance..." ~ Rev. John Flowers Serjeant, 1878

*It's not too late to join. Just click on the button above. One Thousand Gifts  is in bookstores everywhere and the chapter one video from Ann and book club discussion begins tomorrow. Hope to see y'all there.

From the heart...

It was a February over twenty years ago that we'd taken stacks of homemade valentines to deliver to the elderly. Physically and mentally disabled, she sat in a wheelchair in the nursing home hallway and repeatedly sang the only words she could remember to a tune of her own.

"I love the Lord and the Lord loves me."

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. ~ Mark 12:30 ESV

It's been a difficult winter for my friend's elderly mother. She's frail and weak and disoriented and confused.

She holds her daughter's hand, speaking words sweet and lovely, but forgets who she is or how to brush her teeth.

"How can that be?" My friend wonders.

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. ~ Luke 6:45 ESV

And I remember the lady in the wheelchair those many years ago, and how she sang love from her heart.

"Because brushing teeth takes work and thought, but love is from the heart." I tell my friend."

"The true nature of people's hearts can often be seen when they speak off-the-cuff, without reflection." ~ ESV Study Bible

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. ~ Proverbs 4:23 ESV


Photos-splashes of winter color from Pollywog Creek and five week old Addisyn with her adoring Aunt Emily.