He loves me, he loves me not...

It's a steamy August morning and sweat beads across my forehead and trickles down my flushed face. As I put the basket of cameras on the bench under the oak tree and sit down to rest and cool off, I swat the skeeters that bite through my now wet socks, and conclude that my husband doesn't really love me or he wouldn't make me live in this subtropical misery.

For no good reason, I begin rehearsing a mental list of all the reasons I don't feel loved - and the morning that started out full of joy and gratitude for the lush green beauty that surrounds me turns to sulking and discontent as I entertain woe-is-me thoughts.

Sunlight sparkles on the dew-soaked flower heads and a fox squirrel scurries up a tall pine in the pasture when I'm sure I feel a tap on my shoulder and a still small voice whisper, hold on sister, you aren't all that loving yourself, you know. 

And just like that I see my own failings, and that mental list I'd been preparing of all the ways I think my husband fails me pales in comparison with the ways I see that I fail him, too.  

It's God's kindness that turns me on my heels and sets me straight - and love that covers a multitude of sins. I pick up my basket of cameras and wander out to those new-to-me orchids Louis showed me a few weeks ago, grateful for a husband who loves me and the subtropical beauty that's been placed at my feet.

I {LOVE} Sunday::to be filled with joy and abound in hope...

May the God of hope fill you with all joy
and peace in believing,
so that by the power of the Holy Spirit
you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13 ESV

Still Saturday::around the pond...

Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the LORD!
For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them forever and ever;
he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.
Praise the LORD from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and mist,
stormy wind fulfilling his word!
Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
Beasts and all livestock,
creeping things and flying birds!
Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and maidens together,
old men and children!
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for his name alone is exalted;
his majesty is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people,
praise for all his saints,
for the people of Israel who are near to him.
Praise the LORD!
Psalm 148 ESV

There's nothing quite like a hurricane that illustrates the power of creation and our total lack of control. We do our part - preparing our property for high winds and our homes for the inevitable loss of power - and we pray for those who are either unprepared or unable to prepare and left vulnerable and helpless and maybe even alone. We will be just fine here on Pollywog Creek. I've lived in Florida all my life. Preparing for a hurricane is what we do here - much like my northern friends who prepare for winter's blasts and blizzards. But my heart is heavy for the people of Haiti and for those who remain in Isaac's path who will choose to ignore the warnings, and especially for those who do not know the One who gives us peace in every storm.

Forecast for Pollywog Creek



{Photos - around the pond}

Week{ending}::living sacrificially...

It's been a great week. Well...except for Monday when I had the worst headache ever while away from home on business and lunch with the local crisis pregnancy center board. I felt so horrible that Joyce, one of my dearest friends in the whole world, had to drive me and my car home {an hour away} so that I could close my eyes, lay back in the car seat with a wet paper napkin over my face and try to keep from throwing up. 

Joyce is a saint. She lives more sacrificially than anyone I know - caring for her elderly mother in her home while meeting the multiple and various needs of so many others. Monday was a rare day of respite from caregiving, and she ended up caring for me. 

But the rest of the week? It's been great. Fatigue aside, I've felt better than I have in weeks - able to wander around outside sooner after I wake up and meander farther from the house in the wandering.

Wednesday I was beyond thrilled to meet up with Jen - a beautiful young woman God placed in my life and heart several years ago. Like Joyce, Jen lives sacrificially - loving on and nurturing her young family while caring for and carrying the burdens of those God brings across her path. She's a faithful friend and warrior in prayer.


Oh how I love the body of Christ. God is so, so good to me and I'm incredibly grateful for His kindness, His goodness....His love and grace.

Speaking of gratitude...

Joyce and Jen and Ann are not the only people in my life who live sacrificially for others - men and women who love and live like Jesus. There's simply not enough space to list them all here, but I know who you are, you know who you are, and you bless me a thousand times over. 
Who in the body of Christ comes to your mind when you think of living sacrificially in ways that bless and minister to you?

Wishing...

Several days in a row I walk to the edge of my neighbor's pasture to admire the glorious lavender pennyroyal blooming under the pines and oaks and along the fence line - just out of my reach.

The long rows of barb-wire keep me and my camera at a distance, and I pout - wishing the fragrant herb with its tiny delicate flowers was growing this abundantly on my property.

Late in the afternoon, a dozen fire trucks respond to a brush fire down the road. I grab my camera and walk to a far corner of our pasture for a closer look.

For half an hour or more I watch as the fire is contained, and as I turn to walk back across the field toward the setting sun, I catch a glimpse of the lavender flowers sparkling at my feet. In my pasture.

They were there all along. I was too busy coveting my neighbor's flowers to notice.

In Rose from the Brier, Amy Carmichael reminds me that when I wish for something, what I'm saying is that I'm wishing "that things were different."

In other words, I'm not content with what I have and where I am when I'm wishing for the gifts - the flowers in someone else's green pasture.

And I'm humbled that Grace places tiny lavender flowers at my feet - when I least deserve them.

{from the archives}

Why do you get up in the morning?

Our children are grown, I let my RN license expire after mom died over ten years ago {I've been out of practice too long to go back to nursing, anyway}, and most days I'm physically unable to be of much use to anyone. Worst of all, some mornings it takes hours for me to be able to move around, so Louis tells Pastor Eric maybe he shouldn't count on us as much, and I feel lower than a snake's belly. 

When Paul David Tripp asks, What is your reason for getting up in the morning? I laugh and think good question.

Why do I get up in the morning if no one needs me or can count on me for anything?  I know why, I really do, but the question still haunts me.

Gas is expensive, so Louis mows the pasture less often this summer, letting grass grow taller and wildflowers wilder, and he tells me one morning about a new flower under the pines. It's worth the effort to investigate, I determine - having not seen anything new in weeks. 

I find this new flower growing four feet tall from the ground to the tip of a thin stalk with a green spikey cluster of small, almost-black orchid flowers that are difficult to see spiraled around the tip of the curled-over head.

A few days later, I venture out to check on this new-to-me flower and discover dozens of white, spidery orchids growing wild all around me. We've lived here on Pollywog Creek for almost twenty-five years and we've never seen these orchids.  They can't be seen from the house or the road - only right where they are planted and growing.

And it occurs to me - that over-used cliché - these wild orchids are blooming right where they are planted. Uncultivated, they grow and bloom where God placed them and where only He might see, and that's why they get up in the morning.

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.

1 Corinthians 7:17 ESV

So...what is your reason for getting up in the morning?

{Photos - thanks to Prem Subrahmanyam - a homeschooling dad of 15 children -  who helped me identify the orchids.}

{More August Green} and think about these things...

It's not at all true you know - what they say about sticks and stones, and breaking bones, and words that never hurt.

I remember seventeen and my skinny self - no more than a hundred and  ten pounds in navy blue cords and a grey sweatshirt, and the young man I’m with pokes me in the ribs to tease. Fat pat the rat, he says with a  grin, thinking he's being cute.

He means no harm. He likes me, I think, but that silly rhyme pierces a shy young girl not sure of herself, and I tuck those four little words into the pocket of my soul, so that long past seventeen, and a hundred and ten pounds, they have the power to keep wounding - over and over and over.   

Until the day I realize that words only have the power I give them. I can keep thoughtless words tucked in my soul or I can toss them to the wind - because the power to let them go is mine.

Have you ever held onto hurt, giving it power it doesn't own, or have you let it go - tossed to the wind – because truthfully, the choice is ours. 

For who has time in this mist of a life to wallow in wounds when greater is He that is in you and me than he that is in the world. 

…whatever is true
whatever is honorable
whatever is just
whatever is pure
whatever is lovely
whatever is commendable
if there is any excellence
if there is anything worthy of praise
think about these things.
~ Philippians 4.8

Week{ending} :: no longer anxious...

I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize that He is able to carry out His will for me. It does not matter where He places me, or how. That is for Him to consider, not me, for in the easiest positions He will give me grace, and in the most difficult ones His grace is sufficient.  ~ Hudson Taylor

Drifting from grace...

 

I used to always blame the enemy for reminding me of past sins, but I've come to realize that when a past sin pops into my thoughts and picks at me, it just might be the Holy Spirit's correction when I'm drifting toward pharisaism. The moment I recognize it for what it is, {I remember grace and it} pours in, in ever increasing abundance...and I'm humbled and grateful.

Moi, in a comment to Glynn Young's The Gap Grows Wider

Illusions...

The male cardinal in his velvety red coat perches atop my backyard swing in the shade of the sweet-gum tree, and the snow-like bokeh in the background makes this scene look more like a Christmas card than a picture of summer in this sub-tropical heat.

And I'm reminded that things are often not what they appear to be.

Transparent and vulnerable, we trust our redemption stories in life group - and as each story unfolds, we are in awe of God's grace and goodness to redeem our pasts, our failures and our pains. Our stories shatter the illusion that we have it all together - revealing our scars of brokenness, the road we travel to wholeness, and the new creation we have become in Christ

Our shared stories change us - they change me and how I see the others in life group and the person sitting next to me in church or in the doctor's waiting room, or standing in the check-out line at the grocery store, because I know that people and circumstances are often not what they appear to be.

It's an illusion that anyone "has it all together" - only that grace holds us together, and when I'm honest with myself and others, we both know we're not alone.

Free photos, country critters, and {un}related ramblings...

I couldn't bring myself to title this another Just in Case You've Missed Me post, but that's more or less what it is.   

I'll be honest - it's been a rough few weeks - bad enough that Louis has had to cut up my eggs so I could eat them with a spoon. There have been days that my hands have been so painful and swollen that I couldn't pick up a brush or get dressed. RAD has been compared to wearing a coat of armor. That's exactly how I've felt just trying to fold clothes or move about inside my house. 

And pain slowly rubs against me - interrupting thought processes and adding to the fatigue that already characterizes chronic illness. My mind works in slow-motion these days. I struggle to help Emily with her college math, polish my monthly assignments, and I'll look at a blank screen on the computer and think, "I've got nothing to say. Nothing." The pain I can tolerate, but the lack of accomplishment tends to depress me. I told God one day, "I just want to be productive." {More about that in a future post - I'll just say that I'm reading Jerry Bridge's The Disciplines of Grace and it's exactly what I need.} 

But there have been better days here and there, and they have been pure gold - lunch with a friend, hours with Robbi seeking publication on our book {does the editing ever end?}, church, and even a couple of day trips with Louis. 

Some of the best days have been those with family - watching the Olympics with Emily, playing with Gavin, and delighting in Addisyn's antics and Tyler's coos and smiles. 

About a month before I was diagnosed with RAD almost two years ago, I wrote this:

Physical pain is no stranger. I've been assaulted, in a car accident, broken my leg, had emergency surgery for a perforated colon, and experience cycles of pain from crohn's disease flares.

For several weeks I've experienced some of the worst joint pains that I can remember - not just my knees, but my shoulders, hands and feet. Getting out of bed, in and out of the car, up and down stairs, dressing and undressing, sitting, standing, walking - there's very little that I am able to do at the moment without pain, and yet it has been a sweet and precious season of walking in the truth that "the joy of the Lord is my strength" - a powerful reality that I could only know in a season of weakness.

The joy of the Lord has been the banner under which I have walked {or limped} since, and though I'm more disabled and in more pain today than I was two years ago, the joy has only increased.  

I can't explain it. It isn't me. It isn't something I can make myself feel. It's only grace. Pure amazing grace.

So please don't feel sorry for me. I've upped my prednisone dose and the past few days have been much better. And is there anything more precious than to know Christ's strength in weakness? To sit at His feet and delight in the sweetest fellowship and lavish love? 

::

Moving on to the free photos. When I wrote about hoarding stories, the Lord was also speaking to me about my photos - the gazillion photos I have stored on various hard drives and online.  

Most of y'all know how I feel about my photographs - I can only take credit for stopping to take them - and even that is God's gift to me. If I capture a glimpse of God's glory in His creation, or in our artistic expressions of what God created, then don't the photos belong to Him? {Doesn't everything I have belong to Him?}

Aren't my photos just like my stories? How dare I bury the talent by hoarding them - holding onto them as though they are mine. 

So I open my hands to give them back to Him by giving many of them to you in a flickr set  - for you to use in your own non-commercial blogs or church-related activities {sermons, newsletters, etc - some of my photos were used in a sermon on thanksgiving}.  

Please be patient with me - I intend to add more photos to the set, but if there is a photo you've seen on my blog that you'd like to use and it isn't in the set, just drop me an email and as long as it isn't one I'm using professionally, in the book or a photo of my family or friends, I'll probably add it to the set for you.

::

God is so, so good to His people - to Him be the glory - great things He has done.

::

{Photos - traveling with Louis down central Florida's back country roads a few weeks ago - taken from the car window - aren't they cute?}

I {LOVE} Sunday::Come, Jesus, Lord...

Now all the earth is bright and glad
With the fresh morn...

...Sun of the soul, let me behold thy dawn!
Come, Jesus, Lord,
O quickly come, according to thy word.

Christian Friedrich Richter, 1704

Green is still the color of August...

It's a love/hate relationship I have with these dog days of August. Not in all my life (and I'm no spring chicken) have I adjusted to Florida summers; and the added effort it takes to get around these days makes the heat and humidity that much more oppressive.

I long to be outdoors - to soak my feet in the dew and wonder at the spider's delicate weavings and the amberwing's lacey wings, and drink in the lush green that's truly the color of August - but on most days, my feet and lungs won't take me there. A brief morning wandering in the still and heavy air leaves me drenched and done for the day.

Wishing my days away pining for cooler weather isn't an option. It shouldn't have been when I was younger (who ever has days to waste?), but it's even more imperative that I live well and in the moment on the back side of "the hill" in these hot and green August days. 

The LORD will GUIDE you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a WELL WATERED GARDEN, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58.11

I {LOVE} Sunday::to stand on God's forever Word...

The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
Isaiah 40:8 ESV