Summer::July Part 1:and God saw that it was good...

[Hurricane Irma has been a major disruption, but it's a story for another month--September, to be exact. And though it's technically now fall, I'm determined to resume my summer photo series where I left off at the end of June. It's bittersweet to look back at pre-Irma photos of our Pollywog Creek property, but July Part 1 is all about the beach.] 

July for me began exactly where June ended--with sand between my toes. 

Both the beginning and end of the first week of July were overnights at the beach with family in a lovely stilt house on a royal poinciana lined street a block from the gulf.

Summer days of beach morning glory, white sand, and warm salty breezes. Sandcastles, cousins, sunscreen, and body boards. Board games, card games, pizza, laughter, and a dance party. Blue-striped beach umbrellas and an evening sky lantern launch. Afternoon thunderstorms and those divine, glorious sunsets.

In the days in between, Emily left for Rwanda and Louis experienced what was probably the beginning of a detached retina--a situation that became a reality one month later. But first there was the beach.

God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 

~Genesis 1:10

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. 

~Psalm 139:9-10

The gift of a day...

An early morning fog lays thin across the pasture and fields when I leave home for appointments in the city, but as I turn onto the rural highway and head west, the fog seems to melt in an instant in the sun's majestic rise.

The horizon behind me is brushed orange and wispy clouds streak across the massive globe's face, and the reflection in my rear view mirror is breathtaking.

I've been looking forward to this day for a week. Since Louis' retirement two months ago, I've yet to establish a new and happy rhythm for meeting my introvert longings for silence and solitude. I'm thrilled for Louis and incredibly grateful for this new season of opportunities for both of us, but like every life change, it requires adjusting to a new normal. The hour drive alone to the city and then back home appeals to my longings.

The appointment with my orthopedic surgeon is equally anticipated. As strange as it may sound, I've missed seeing him and his staff as frequently as before. A few months before my surgeries two years ago, I wrote:

My Thursday morning trips to the city to see Lizzie for knee injections are almost like going to church. I leave that office not just with medicine in my knee, but inspired and encouraged to steadfastness and hope. 

This visit I leave copies of our book for my doctor, his nurse and Lizzie (who, sadly, is on vacation), and we talk photography, church, and going to Israel as much as we do my health. And when the doctor tells me I'm a poster patient for recovery from knee surgery and he doesn't need to see me again for 5 years unless I have a problem, I'm actually heartbroken. 

My second appointment is for lab work and is less anticipated. I don't dread it, I have lab work often and schedule it ahead of time so I don't have to wait, so when I open the door to the waiting room with no empty seats and a heavy aroma of too many people in one room, I'm grateful I'd made an appointment. I arrive early so I'm not surprised that I'm not called soon after signing in, but when my appointment time passes I begin to wonder.

The receptionist informs me that she has no record of my appointment and that it will therefore be at least another 45 minute wait so I might want to reschedule. I resist the urge to argue or complain and tell her I live too far away to reschedule. I'll just wait. I'm learning again and again to accept challenges and inconveniences and interruptions to my predetermined plans with grace. They might be divinely appointed, after all. 

I shop for a few necessities, order a tall iced coffee, and return to the highway and the quiet and solitude of driving the rural route home. 

Along the way I briefly stop by a small and rarely visited park. The end of summer is merely a date on the calendar, and I haven neither the desire nor the fortitude to stay long in the heat and humidity that will linger well into fall down here, but I don't like to pass by opportunities to seek and capture beauty. 

I told my editor a few weeks ago that I'm a slow and insecure writer. As much as I wish I could tell her that I'll meet deadlines early, I know I'm going to hold on to the final second. I edit (and still miss errors) to the nth degree before I press send. That said, I'm going to try to be less insecure and more productive here in Pollywog Creek, but I'm not making promises. 

I have a couple of book reviews (and giveaways) scheduled over the next couple of weeks. AND I'm resurrecting Encou{RA}age, hopefully with the addition of many guest posts. I wrote a revised introduction here, and a fantastic contribution from Amy Smith was posted yesterday. Please visit Amy and consider subscribing and sharing Encou{RA}ge with someone you know who lives with an invisible, autoimmune disease like RA. 

Enough about me. What about you? Have you or are you experiencing a life change that is requiring adjustments in your routine? And are you an introvert like me who loves people but also craves quiet and solitude? 

I {LOVE} Sunday::to know in what the LORD delights...

Thus says the LORD:
“Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom,
let not the mighty man boast in his might,
let not the rich man boast in his riches, 

but let him who boasts boast in this,
that he understands and knows me,
that I am the LORD
who practices steadfast love,
justice,
and righteousness
in the earth.
For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”
Jeremiah 9:23-24

{With the Sunday Community at Lisha's #GiveMeGrace }

Still Saturday::remember that we are not worthy...

You and I love not because we find worthy objects to love. Remember the cross!

Remember that we are not worthy. We are jerks, terse and stubborn people. We do not deserve God's love, and yet he provided it for us. 

Salvation's beauty comes by way of sacrificial love---a love that gives itself up for the unlovable. And that bloody love gave us life. It should be our joy to mime this kind of love. 

Today, you and I have the opportunity to bring life to others by way of our sacrificial love. 

Are you bringing heaven with you into your relationships? 

Willard, Timothy (2014-10-14). Longing for More: Daily Reflections on Finding God in the Rhythms of Life (p. 27). Baker Publishing Group. 

Still Saturday::to invite mystery...

What does beauty show us? To C. S. Lewis, beauty pointed to another place. "The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them," writes Lewis, "it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing." 

Our poetry and photographs, our music and films, stir us with a beauty we struggle to communicate— mystery. "They are not the thing itself, ' Lewis continues. "They are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”  

By pursuing the beautiful in life, we invite mystery. God makes himself known in all creation, and yet the more time I spend planting flowers with my daughters, for example, the more I find his character revealed; not only in the visual beauty of the flowers themselves, but in how they bring me and the girls together and the life principles we learn from planting and growing. We discover the mystery of life and trace it to a God who cares enough about his children to reveal himself in the glory of pansies and black-eyed Susans.  

Willard, Timothy (2014-10-14). Longing for More: Daily Reflections on Finding God in the Rhythms of Life (p. 113). Baker Publishing Group. 

Still Saturday::before you pray...

Before you pray, bow quietly before God, just to remember and realise 

who He is, 

how near He is, 

how certainly He can and will help. 

Just be still before Him, 

and allow His Holy Spirit to waken and stir up in your soul 

the child-like disposition of absolute dependence and confident expectation. 

Wait upon God as a Living Being, 

as the Living God, 

who notices you, 

and is just longing to fill you with His salvation. 

Wait on God till you know you have met Him;

 prayer will then become so different. 

 And when you are praying, 

let there be intervals of silence, 

reverent stillness of soul, 

in which you yield yourself to God, 

in case He may have aught He wishes to teach you or to work in you. 

Waiting on Him will become the most blessed part of prayer, 

and the blessing thus obtained will be doubly precious 

as the fruit or such fellowship with the Holy One, 

God has so ordained it, 

in harmony with His holy nature, 

and with ours, 

that waiting on Him should be the honour we give Him. 

Let us bring Him the service gladly and truthfully; 

He will reward it abundantly. 

Andrew Murray,Waiting on God

Still Saturday::tipping the scales for joy...

When I go looking for glimpses of Him, when I seek to fill the empty places with more of Him who is beauty, my equilibrium recalibrates to find its center in the Judge who became grace to bestow grace and I can rightly read the scale, feel it inside, and know it's true:

If you can really see -- the weight of Glory always tips the scales for joy.

~ Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts Devotional, p. 83*

Photo: playing with layering.

*I've been privileged to lead the women's study at my church this fall, developing it around around Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts Devotional and the One Thousand Gifts DVD Study. If you are interested in how I've taken a 5 lesson DVD study and created an 11 week study for groups, just drop me an email ( pollywogcreekporch at gmail dot com )and I'll be happy to share the plan with you. 

I {LOVE} Sunday::to hear of his steadfast love...

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,
for in you I trust.
Make me know the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
Psalm 143:8
With the Sunday Community at Lisha's #GiveMeGrace

In the rustling grass...

Florida Butterfly Orchid

Following his Syracuse University education and theological training at Auburn Theological Seminary, Maltbie Babcock became the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Lockport, New York, in 1882.

Damselfly

Maltbie had been an outstanding athlete in college, and he delighted in running and hiking through the beautiful countryside around Lockport during his pastorate there.

Polydamus-swallowtail

As he left for a run or hike, he was known to say, I'm going out to see my Father's world.

Beautyberry

Before Maltbie left Lockport in 1887, to pastor the Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland, he wrote a poem with sixteen stanzas - each beginning with the words, This is My Father's World.

Legless glass lizard

Maltbie was just 42 years old when on May 18, 1901, he died of a bacterial infection en-route to the Holy Land - the trip a gift from the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City where he was the pastor at the time.

Giant Swallowtail

That same year, Maltbie's writings, including the lovely hymn This Is My Father's World, were compiled by his wife and published into a book entitled Thoughts for Everyday Living.

Pileated Woodpecker

School Days

by Maltbie Davenport Babcock

Lord, let me make this rule, 
To think of life as school, And try my best 
To stand each test, 
And do my work, 
And nothing shirk. 
Should someone else outshine 
This dullard head of mine, 
Should I be sad? 
I will be glad. 
To do my best, 
Is Thy behest. 
If weary with my book,
I cast a wistful look 
Where posies grow, 
O let me know 
That flowers within 
Are best to win. 
Dost take my book away 
Anon to let me play, 
And let me out 
To run about? 
I grateful bless 
Thee for recess.

Swallow-tailed Kite

In his article (reprinted from 2005) Nature-Deficit Disorder - Is Your Child at Risk?, Dr. Al Mohler shares this from Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods:

Louv tells of interviewing thousands of children in the course of previous research. At one point, he received this candid comment from a fourth-grade boy in San Diego: I like to play indoors better, ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.

Southeastern Five-lined Skink

Mohler concludes with this (emphasis mine):

This is our Father’s world, and we would do well to receive this world and enjoy it, while giving praise and glory to God for the beauty and bounty it contains. We understand that nature is not an end to itself, and we affirm that the creation exists as the theater of God’s glory for the drama of redemption. All this should help Christians to remember that we honor God most faithfully when we receive His good gifts most gratefully. Christians should take the lead in reconnecting with nature and disconnecting from machines.

British Soldier Lichen


Creeping Oxeye with Adult Agapostemon splendens (Lepeletier), a sweat bee
{*All photos from my Pollywog Creek backyard the past two weeks}

Still Saturday, I {LOVE} Sunday::the final stretch...

This can be my time of greatest growth in Christ, the final stretch to the finish line, a time to put away every stale and self-protective barrier and make a dash for the tape.

My best years, my richest insights, a time of quiet fruitfulness, various and ripe -- my deepest experiences of Christ are still ahead of me.

This is my eager expectation. This is my time of ripened fruit and flight, living increasingly in the reality of the resurrection life, my heart and mind set on things above, earnest and ready, expectant and alert.

Jean Fleming, Pursue the Intentional Life, p.37

With the sweet and beautiful Sandra and Lisha