You are my God, and I give You thanks;
You are my God, and I praise You.
Give thanks to our Eternal Lord; He is always good.
He never ceases to be loving and kind.
(Psalm 118:28,29 The Voice)
Category: Flowers
Rest in Hope
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Light, Love, Joy
May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love and joy of God’s presence and not a moment without the entire surrender of myself as a vessel for Him to fill full of His Spirit and His love.
-Andrew Murray
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Restoration
I planted tulips the year we moved into this house 26 years ago. Then the deer moved into our neighbourhood. Deer like tulips -for breakfast. They devour them like Lindt chocolates (and seem to prefer the red ones). After a while no tulips sprang up when the spring sun warmed the garden and I didn’t plant anymore. Occasionally tulip leaves emerged, but either they formed no flowers or the deer nipped them in the bud and they shrank back into the ground quickly. I forgot all about them.
This year three brave tulips are blooming under my window, returning after all these years.
Some people are like that. The period of “the dark night of the soul” may last a long time. The “devourer” has kept them from raising their heads and freely being who they are created to be. The years of darkness, when no growth can be seen, can last a very long time. Mine did. There were people who lost hope for me as depression and negativity kept me in a shallow grave year after year.
Mine did. There were people who lost hope for me as depression and negativity kept me in a shallow grave year after year.
There were people who lost hope for me as depression and negativity kept me in a shallow grave year after year.
But God…
God is in the restoration business. Time is not as important as process to him. He knows who we really are, and he is not disappointed.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)
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Unfading Beauty
Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by the beauty of God’s creation I just want to cry and thank him from the bottom of my heart for moments like these.
But they are moments. I am anxious to get out there with my camera because I know these sunny wild flowers will fade and die within a week or two.
Other flowers will replace them later -the lupins, the daisies, the bright red salvia- and they will be just as beautiful. And they will also droop and fade and die.
In landscape photography much depends upon the season and the weather conditions and the time of day and angle of the sun. I think my desperation to get out there when the conditions are right, even though the timing may be inconvenient for other obligations, is about an awareness that life is fleeting.
But temporary beauty is like a sign post that points to a greater, more permanent beauty that will not fade.
I’ve been thinking about this verse:
But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. (1 Peter 3:4)
I disliked it in my youth because of the way it and the surrounding verses were applied. The result was a rather oppressive less-than-lovely interpretation of freedom. Today I see something different. Some translations use the term incorruptible beauty, meaning beauty that is not subject to ugly decay like a corpse. Other translations say unfading loveliness or lasting beauty. All of them talk about a higher form of beauty -a gentle, quiet, peaceful spirit. “Not anxious or wrought up” in the Amplified version. Peace comes from within, but so does beauty.
I would not want to return to the type of sexual harassment I experienced in some of my first jobs, nor would I want to be embarrassed by the wolf whistles and remarks that came with walking past construction sites when I was 18, but like many woman I never realized how far my looks took me until I lost them. There’s that moment when you realize that being called a femme fatale is now more about your absent-mindedness behind the wheel of a car than your ability to be a lust-magnet. It’s actually kind of a sad day when attractive men confide in you about their romantic problems as if you have been neutered by “fading loveliness.”
Beauty is not the only currency. Many of my friends who are reaching retirement age have to face the realization that the currency that earned them a place of respect or usefulness in this world is not holding its former value. Surgeons lose their dexterity, musicians lose their hearing, and teachers lose their patience. Athletes and dancers face this reality sooner than actuarians, but eventually the time comes when we are replaced by those with brighter newer beauty, talent, or skill. We fight it. Man, how we fight it, but reality hits us square in the mirror eventually.
“Inward beauty” is not a euphemism for “nice personality” or “a great face for radio.” Inward beauty is more like the light that glows in a dark and dreary season. Inward beauty shines when a person knows they are deeply loved and cherished. The inwardly beautiful will not be plucked, stuffed in a vase, admired and tossed a few days later; they are at peace with God and themselves and can afford to love others gently and extravagantly because they know they have been forgiven much. Inward beauty does not fade or droop or shrivel or rot. It keeps growing through all the seasons of life because their intimate relationship with the Creator of such beauty grows on for eternity.
We’ve only just begun.
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Away With Sorrow
I look forward to this week here in the mountains. The sunflowers are in bloom on Eager Hill. The minor surgery I had last week has knocked the stuffings out of me a bit, but taking the climb slowly allowed me to appreciate the scents and sounds and changing light as spring showers shifted through the sky. I took frequent breaks and simply breathed in joy.
Mein gläubiges Herze,
Frohlocke, sing, scherze,
Dein Jesus ist da!
Weg Jammer, weg Klagen,
Ich will euch nur sagen:
Mein Jesus ist nah.
My faithful heart,
delight, sing, play,
your Jesus is here!
Away with sorrow, away with lamenting,
I will only say to you:
my Jesus is near.
-J.S. Bach
Release your heart’s joy in sweet music to the Eternal.
When the upright passionately sing glory-filled songs to Him, everything is in its right place.
Worship the Eternal with your instruments, strings offering their praise;
write awe-filled songs to Him on the 10-stringed harp.
Sing to Him a new song;
play each the best way you can,
and don’t be afraid to be bold with your joyful feelings.
For the word of the Eternal is perfect and true;
His actions are always faithful and right.
He loves virtue and equity;
the Eternal’s love fills the whole earth.
(Psalm 33:1-5)
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From Glory to Glory
So do we go or do we stay? The weather on this side of the Rockies is lovely. We’ve had summer temperatures this week and suddenly there are leaves on the trees and flowers in my garden! Glorious flowers!
But there is a heavy snowfall warning out for the Cowboy Trail on the other side of the Rockies, the part that lies between us and our granddaughter’s special day. The temperature is right around the freezing mark, so that could mean wet highways, or impossible highways.
I find myself shopping the weather forecast sites looking for the most optimistic reports, but I know better than to be caught in the mountains in a heavy spring snowfall. So we check highway cameras and road reports and wait for Facebook posts from those who are already out on the roads and wonder if we should make a dash for it before it gets really bad.
Change is like that. I have seen the transforming power of Jesus in people’s lives and it’s amazing. They don’t seem like the same people. There is hope, joy, peace and love in their lives. Then suddenly the habits of the last season blow back in -and it’s a big mess.
Disappointment in the apparent lack of progress in our lives can make us wonder if we are actually getting anywhere. Sometimes in the midst of this journey, when we see how far we have got to go, discouragement piles up on the road like unwelcome spring snow. “Hope deferred” the Bible calls it. It says it will even make your heart feel sick. But the next part of that verse is the one to watch “But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”
We can look at the snow which, although very real and hazardous and mighty inconvenient, we know is passing, or we can look at the trees blossoming into new life. Transformation is about not looking to our past for norms. It is about fixing our eyes on hope and the joy that lies before us. We move from glory to glory.
Soon. Very soon.
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Great is Thy Faithfulness
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand has provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
-William Runyon
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Father’s Good Pleasure
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32)
I found a little shrub in my garden. I didn’t plant it. I didn’t nurture or tend it. I don’t know what it is, but it is covered with tiny pink blossoms while everything else is still frozen. A free gift of promise that says, “More to come.”
Thank You.
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Prepare the Way
I found one!
The first lone crocus I saw this year was not in a forest clearing but in the middle of a construction zone. At the end of every winter I go out looking for signs of life. I have a lot of photos of crocus flowers in my stash because they give me such hope. When I was a child I picked bunches of them to bring inside, but they soon flopped over the side of the jam jar. A wild crocus is not easily domesticated; it is meant to be out in the dead cold field poking its optimistic head through patches of snow. It is a forerunner of better things to come.
I was thinking about forerunners the other day, those people who can see what is coming next before anyone else does. Hawk-eyes, scouts, prophets, innovators, preparers-of-the-way. In the art world Van Gogh was one of these. In his lifetime he never sold a painting, never received recognition, never found a place where he “fit.” That boy was “different.” It wasn’t until many years later his paintings sold for millions. Forerunners don’t run to be popular.
John the Baptist was a forerunner. He was also “different.” He didn’t have a complete picture of the One who was to come, forerunners seldom do, but he knew with certainty in his heart that there was a change coming, and his assignment was to prepare hearts for change. Like a farmer who prepares the field for planting he set about tearing out obnoxious weeds that had been there so long folks had accepted their presence as part of the landscape. He preached the message of repentance. Repentance is not the same thing as penance, (trying to make up for wrongs done by some sort of demonstration of self-administered punishment or public humiliation, although, for some making public apologies and announcements of plans to repay what they stole may be an indication of their intent to change.) Repentance often involves grief, but primarily repentance (metanoia in Koine Greek) means change. Repentance is admitting our thinking has been off and coming into agreement with God that we have missed the mark he set (hamartia, the Greek word for sin means just that -missing the mark.) Repentance means having a better thought and adjusting our aim. Repentance means leaving the past behind and doing things differently.
The basic mission of forerunners like John is to poke a finger into embarrassingly sensitive, and often hidden, parts of our lives and ask the question, “And how’s that workin’ for ya?”
There are forerunners amongst us now, folks with an antsy sense that change is imminent, but who don’t know exactly what that change will look like. They go through life awkwardly, never really fitting in anywhere, annoying themselves and others with their inability to find contentment with accepted ideas and practices that don’t quite line up with both the Holy Spirit’s whisperings and with Scripture. They are not easily domesticated, and often pop up in places where dormancy is “normal.” They stand out because they are different and the light shines through them in colours we haven’t seen for a long time.
Yet somehow we are drawn to them. They are messengers of hope.
Charis: Subject to Change 