Month: October 2022

Do You Love Me?

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Uncategorized3 Comments

It’s been about thirty years since I gave up. I gave up trying to please God, or perhaps more accurately, to please God according to the job list people who put themselves in charge of the Pleasing God Committee gave me.

I quit trying, but I quit with a question: So, God, if I don’t do any of this stuff, if I walk away from trying so hard, will you still love me, or is your love conditional?

I’m a slow and stubborn learner and I had erected a lot of self-protective barriers. Wounded people do that. But God has grace and patience beyond — way beyond — anything I could imagine based on what I could drum up myself.

Since that time, his kindness and faithfulness have won my heart. He met me in the desert. He wooed me, or as Hosea wrote about God’s actions toward the unfaithful wife symbolizing a nation that went after every pleasure but God, he “allured” me. Like the woman in the desert, I eventually responded with my own song of love.

Now, all these years later, I hear him asking me the question. “If I don’t give you what you want when you want it, will you still love me, or is your love conditional?”

There are a lot of things I want, and as the beloved of the King of Kings am entitled to. I want good health. I want financial security. I want my children and grandchildren to have easy lives and a great relationship with God. I want my city and my country to prosper. Most of all, I want to be understood.

As I ponder, I remember this is the question posed to many people in the Bible from Abraham with his precious promised son, to Job with his wealth and healthy family, to Solomon with his fine mind and reputation, to Jesus himself who laid down the right to the recognition and worship owed him.

Like Peter, I remember the night of denial. “Jesus is ok,” I said, “But I don’t trust God the Father not to use me, then throw me away.”

Like Peter on the beach with Jesus, with the scent of a charcoal fire in the air to remind him of the night of denial, I hear the question. “Do you love me for who I am and not just for what I give you?”

I know my weaknesses. I know how easily the rug is still pulled out from under me when I feel harshly criticized or misunderstood. I know that in my own strength I can’t say yes.

I also know that his strength is made perfect in weakness. I also know that he gives me his love so I have something to give back to him. Everything comes from him, and in him and through him I live and move and have my being.

Yesterday the words from a song sung by Celine Dion played in my dreams:

You were my strength when I was weak.
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak.
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see.
You saw the best there was in me.
Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach.
You gave me faith ’cause you believed.
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me

This morning I was singing a song in my spirit. The words come from Psalm 73 which, in the New Living Testament, reads:

Whom have I in heaven but you?
    I desire you more than anything on earth.
My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
    but God remains the strength of my heart;
    he is mine forever.

Himself

On By Charis PsalloIn autumn, nature, Photography, Uncategorized2 Comments

If we are in Christ the whole basis of our goings is God, not conceptions of God, not ideas of God, but God Himself. We do not need any more ideas about God, the world is full of ideas about God. They are all worthless, because the ideas of God in anyone’s head are of no more use than our own ideas. What we need is a real God, not more ideas about Him.

-Oswald Chambers

Moment By Moment

On By Charis PsalloIn faith, PhotographyLeave a comment

“The reality of living by faith as though we were already dead, of living by faith in open communion with God, and then stepping back into the external world as though we are already raised from the dead, this is not once for all, it is a matter of moment-by-moment faith and living moment by moment. This morning’s faith will never do for this noon. The faith of this noon will never do for suppertime. The faith of suppertime will never do for the next morning. Thank God for the reality for which we were created, a moment-by-moment communication with God himself.“

-Francis Schaeffer

Things to Do

On By Charis PsalloIn Music, Photography6 Comments

This may be the ultimate in lazy photography. I woke up and saw the sun shining through the window. I liked the way it looked, even without my glasses. I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo –still without my glasses. Who needs focus when the light is right?

Those flowers on the ledge were meant for someone else, but they started dropping petals before I could take them to her. They looked a little past their prime, but not dead yet, so I stuck them on my own window ledge with plans to get her something else. Then the sun lit them, and the whole room, a golden yellow.

I put my glasses on and sat on the edge of the bed. That’s when lines from a song by Kristene Demarco started playing in my head (and heart).

Let me show you what I see.
You can’t dream too big for Me.
So get up, get on your way.
We’ve got things to do today.
Fear not!
If I could say it any louder, I would!

I’ve been feeling discouraged lately. My body can’t keep up to the pace it used to. I’m behind schedule. I should be much further ahead in in spiritual and emotional maturity by now. People around me are excited about new projects and I feel like I’m still knee-deep in mop-up operations. There are things that have been the focus of my prayers for such a long time that are still a mess.

Then I remember that “dis-couraged,” like “dis-graced,” is description of lack, the removal of something that was once there. My heavenly Father no more deprives me of courage than he deprives me of grace. He is the source of courage as much as he is the source of grace — and I have already experienced his lavish grace in weakness.

Thank you, Lord for comfort in the form of a sunbeam and a song. Tears of joy come in the morning.

Invitation

On By Charis PsalloIn autumn, Photography3 Comments

We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan. (Romans 8:28 NIV)

I’m not a morning person. I never have been. Lately, it’s becoming more difficult to get moving in the morning, but my husband needed me to drive him to an early meeting. On the way home, I impulsively decided to see if my favourite garden was open. It was, by a minute or two. The sun revealed colours I hadn’t seen on the gate before.

“Come away with me,” I heard.

I hadn’t planned to go. In fact, I was grumbling about pushing through the pain to get moving and accommodate another person’s agenda.

I heard the invitation.

I said yes.

It was so beautiful!

Every Movement of My Heart

On By Charis PsalloIn autumn, nature, PhotographyLeave a comment

Lord, you know everything there is to know about me.

You perceive every movement of my heart and soul,

and you understand my every thought before it even enters my mind.

You are so intimately aware of me, Lord.

You read my heart like an open book

and you know all the words I’m about to speak

before I even start a sentence!

You know every step I will take before my journey even begins.

Psalm 139:1-4 TPT

I took one of those personal trivia quizzes that pop up every once in a while on social media. Yes, I know they are designed to search for data that sells us (the product) to potential advertisers. They might think they know me, but they don’t. Not really.

The test asked about hidden talents. I wrote “invisibility.”

Not long before, I ran into some people I had grown up with. We were either in the same class at school or in the same Sunday School class or youth group for years. One person I had known well and spent time with a couple of times a week for sixteen or seventeen years, couldn’t remember me, although she remembered my cousin with the same surname who had only lived in the same town for two years. Another guy vaguely remembered me as the really quiet girl who was the friend of the really brainy girl. That was at the same school where a teacher insisted to my parents that I wasn’t in his class. When they pointed out my name on the register he said, “Well then, she ought to learn to speak up.”

I have learned to speak up, much to the chagrin of those who complain that now I talk too much. They are right, but my response to that criticism tends to be to want to put on the invisibility cloak of my childhood again and try to content myself with watching life from the shadows like I did before I let God heal the shame that held me there so long. Sitting in the dark singing another chorus of “Nobody Likes Me” is not nearly as uplifting as singing a chorus of “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” It’s not a healthy response.

The truth is nobody but God really knows us; we don’t even know ourselves. The search for connection comes from the search for our Creator who knows everything about us and still loves us. He is not disappointed in us because he had no illusions about our state in the first place. It has always been his intention to save us from the messes we have made and the resulting consequences of guilt and shame.

To be known and understood and loved is joy. Without God we are in a constant state of looking to other imperfect people or inanimate things to fill our built-in need for love from someone all-knowing and totally trustworthy, someone who truly knows us, someone who sees the ugliness but moves to bring out the beauty he placed there.

Steffany Gretzinger sings about the joy and hope in being known and loved by Love Himself.

Today

On By Charis PsalloIn autumn, Flowers, Photography2 Comments

There is something particularly precious about the last flowers in the garden at the end of the season. We know the frost will show up one of these nights.

Sometimes we can sense a change in the atmosphere, a shifting in the angle of light, a different scent in the air. Change is coming.

Change means we eventually may need to let go of the rewards of past efforts, but today we stop and admire the beauty in this moment. Today we thank God for his faithfulness. Today we sing.

Golden

On By Charis PsalloIn autumn, PhotographyLeave a comment

I went for a walk down in the lakeshore district this week. It’s getting harder to walk very far, but as I passed under a bower of heart-shaped golden leaves in the warm golden sun beside a golden house, I looked up and smiled.

The golden years are not a time to measure accumulated losses of youth and potential. The golden years are a time to celebrate the accumulated goodness of God and give thanks for his continued faithfulness.

Golden hearts? Yes, I see them. They are lovely! Thank you, Lord! I love you, too.