Anxiety: a poor use of space

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography3 Comments

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“We must learn to cast off our anxieties because we have so many of them. The world destroys spiritual life by generating constant anxiety. Jesus said that the life of the gospel is choked out by the cares of this world. We know this to be true yet we are more chained and tethered to the world than ever before in the human race.”

-John Ortberg

I’m still cleaning out corners of the garden. The old dead growth needs to go. I need the space for healthy plants.

I’m still cleaning out corners of my mind. Old ways of thinking need to go. I need the space for healthier thoughts.

 

 

Making a Comeback

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography, spring, Trees and forests3 Comments

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“If a man just stops to think what he has to praise God for, he will find there is enough to keep him singing praises for a week.”
-Dwight L. Moody

Two years ago the leaves on our double flowering plum suddenly started shriveling up. Within a week most of them had fallen off. Many of the trees on our street suffered the same fate. Leaf miner bugs staged an invasion while we were out on the porch enjoying our ice tea.

We sprayed and fertilized and watered, but it was too late. It was a sad sight. On her way to her car after a visit, my friend Rhonda stopped and held the tip of a barren low-hanging branch in her gentle hand. I knew she was praying for the tree’s recovery. Rhonda is sensitive to nature. She could feel the tree’s pain and she had compassion.

Last spring the tree sprouted leaves, but there were no blossoms. My husband suggested cutting it down, but I couldn’t bear to let go as long as long as it still lived.  I pruned it back and fertilized hoping for revival even as more leaves browned and blew away.

plum tree under vertical ch rs MG_7846This morning as I look out the window above my desk, branches decked in beautiful pink blossoms wave in the breeze. I can’t see them hiding in there, but I can hear the birds singing. Buzzing bees don’t even trigger my fear of them because they are far too busy with flowers to notice me.

The thirty-five-year-old double flowering plum made a dramatic comeback this spring. We marvel in the show because we feared we had lost her.

This week also marks the fourth anniversary of our son-in-love returning home from the hospital. He was miraculously healed after doctors gave him a 0% chance of survival from flesh-eating disease. We thought we had lost him too. But God had other plans, and we still marvel.

To be honest, this has been a year of set-backs. Half of our house is still uninhabited and awaiting restoration after heavy snow-melt floods destroyed the renovation work barely finished. Just when I thought my nagging health issues had finally been dealt with, the tests say ‘not so fast.’ This will require more treatment and more recovery time.

You may be in a season of hope deferred as well.

One thing I have learned in my life: Complaining attracts spiritual forces who are quite willing to help you with dismal projections and align to undermine hope. Praise attracts the angels who live in the atmosphere of worship of the God of Love. They align to bring about God’s purpose – reconciliation between the Father and humankind and restoration of all creation.

Today the plum tree is vibrant with petal colour and birdsong and the hum of honey-makers. Today I have a reminder right outside my window that God is still in the restoration business and there is always, always something to be thankful for.

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Every Detail

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography2 Comments

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Have you ever searched online for a recipe using the ingredients you actually have in the house? Have you clicked on the suggested site and then had to plow through the details of the cook’s day before finding the instructions way down at the bottom under photos of her aunt’s birthday party? Have you ever said to yourself in exasperation, “All I want to know is how many eggs?

Have you ever been trapped by the expectation of polite silence placed on the captured pew audience and listened to a rambling sermon that seemed to include a dozen unrelated illustrations plucked at random from the Good Book. Have you wondered where this was going, if anywhere?

Have you ever said to someone, “How are you?” and they took your question as a literal invitation to recite their medical records? Have you wondered if you should send flowers now or wait for the funeral should they actually succumb to toenail fungus?

Have you ever wanted to say, “I don’t have time for this. Please just get to the point?”

I’m sure people have with me. One of the advantages of writing is the ability to edit out superfluous detail. People don’t have time to travel rabbit trails with me, and frankly, even the most caring among us does not have the capacity to listen to every detail, let alone delight in it.

Have you ever asked your child or grandchild about the classic movie a friend took them to and been delighted to hear every detail, from the story of the kid who spilled his popcorn in the lobby to a description of the hero’s father’s home planet? Our delight is not in the movie. We’ve seen it. Our delight is in the relationship. We rejoice in the child’s joy.

People who have lost spouses or friends, or have been separated from them for long periods of time, tell me the hardest part is not having anyone to share good news with. Someone who cares about the details of your day, someone who doesn’t communicate with watch checking or key jangling that they just want you to get to the point, someone who actually enjoys being in your presence is one of the greatest gifts to our souls’ well-being.

Here’s the most beautiful thing about our relationship with God. He has all the time in the world. He has an infinite capacity to care. He delights in you and every detail of your life.

When I first started on a journey to get to know God better I decided to go on a long walk with Jesus. I didn’t know what to say, so I told him about a movie I had seen. I pretended I was holding his hand like I was a child. I didn’t listen much. I didn’t know I could. After a few days of telling him about the details of my life no one else seemed interested in, he began to tell me about the things he cared about. It began with a flower in the woods, and a bird in the tree.

I began to listen. I wept with him. I rejoiced with him. Because he listens.

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The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
He delights in every detail of their lives.

Though they stumble, they will never fall,
for the Lord holds them by the hand.

(Psalm 37:23, 24 NLT)

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What if your weakness is your super-power?

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography, Uncategorized5 Comments

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I’ve been helping friends write resumes. I’ve also been talking to friends who are looking for reliable employees. Frequently, friends who are writers (or want to be writers) ask me to read their articles and books-in-process. Others are looking for recommendations for reading material. Busy, busy, busy.

I can lose embarrassingly large huge chunks of time following links on social media. At the moment it takes over an hour to keep up with my Facebook feed in the morning (and you know I don’t limit myself to a morning perusal). Daily, I am notified of the arrival of possibly excellent blogs I probably won’t have time to read if I want time to write anything myself.

I was the kind of kid who read everything – cereal boxes, instruction manuals, and terrifying lists of side-effects tucked inside packages of tablets. I read quickly and constantly, but even I am overwhelmed by the barrage of words coming at my eyeballs lately. Like the employers who spoke to me this week, I sometimes look for reasons to scroll past and go on to the next thing. Disqualifiers. (A note to my young friends: potential employers do look at your social media party pictures and rants about unfair teachers, over-sensitive co-workers, and unreasonable cops. Just sayin’.)

The problem is that hasty judgments can be misleading. Sometimes I need to go back and look again because sometimes I have been very wrong. I know this because I have felt harshly judged and dismissed myself. That may be who I was then, but it is not who I am now.

Lately, I have been listening to the stories of people I admire, people who have developed proven character and live lives that effectively communicate the love of God and his ways. These are people who mentor the young, heal the sick, speak the truth, serve the poor, and encourage the stumbling to pick up their feet. I am amazed at how incredibly unqualified some of them would have appeared to be if I had known them twenty years ago.

This week I have also read critical dismissals of people I have learned carry a depth of understanding the shallow, fearful, and defensively religious don’t recognize. I have heard posters say they have nothing to learn from anyone who is a single parent, too young, not academically-inclined, divorced, physically weak or ill, not endorsed by an institutional church, endorsed by the wrong institutional church, unpolished, too slick, female, unattractive, fashionable, unequally yoked to an unbelieving spouse (or a spouse who voted differently), “obese” (seriously? maybe a little husky) or, in the case of a fine writer, dead.

When I listen to the stories of people I admire, both living and dead, I am impressed by the fact that nearly all of them originally presented with disqualifiers for ministry. She failed the same grade three times, she lived with an alcoholic for forty years, he drank for forty years, his wife divorced him, she failed the physical for missionary service, he was attracted to the same sex, he couldn’t carry a tune, she fainted if she had to speak in public, he lost years to depression, she was seduced by a pastor, he was diagnosed with autism, she had a criminal record, he was drowning in debt.

The Bible records many stories of those who were uniquely unqualified for the roles God gave them. We read about prostitutes, collaborators, murderers, convicts, fraud artists, and cowards rising up to become God’s secret weapons. The abandoned, abducted, emasculated, robbed, wounded, harassed, orphaned, and misunderstood eventually found themselves in positions of power and influence only God could arrange.

God’s tendency to use the weak to confound the mighty is not new, yet it is consistently surprising.

Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”
(1 Corinthians 1: 26-31 NLT)

When I am tempted to dismiss someone for lack of obvious potential, I have to look at the bitter, depressed person I was twenty years ago and remember how the grace extended to me made change possible. I am grateful for those who saw more than my list of disqualifications and offered encouragement in dark days. They saw potential when I did not. I am thankful that even now God doesn’t define me by my weaknesses.

When I listen to the stories of people I admire I realize the common element is that these are people who experienced the power of transforming grace in their lives. It is difficult to give what you have not received. They extend grace because they have known grace. Weakness was their superpower because the lack of personal qualifications for the job allowed God’s grace to multiply beyond anything they could imagine.

Is the job God is offering you beyond your ability? You’re hired!

Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

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