Tag: hope

Are we there yet?

On By Charis PsalloIn Animals, Photography, Trees and forests6 Comments
Snowy robins
Snowy robins

According to the calendar spring has arrived. According the robins spring has arrived. According to the crocus spring has arrived.

According the wind whipping huge flakes of snow around the door and shoving icy cold down our necks, the calendar, robins and croci are all delusional.

Sometimes the faith life feels like this. We see the finger of God poking into our winters with the promise of spring. We see healings and restorations and resurrections of dreams. The truth is evident and we rejoice and sing and invest in the future. We buy cucumber and swiss chard seeds (or squish hard seeds as my granddaughter calls them.) Then we step out into the garden to plant them only to find ourselves shin-deep in snow.

The truth is spring has arrived. The truth is winter is still hanging on -at least in this part of the world. So we buy our seeds and start them inside the house, because even though winter has still not received the message that its days are over, we know that its days are over. Even though the worst blizzards on the prairies seem to strike in the spring, the days will turn warmer, the grass will turn green and the flowers will bloom, eventually. Summer is coming and summer has never failed us yet.

We know that God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because even though the enemy of our souls has not accepted his inevitable demise and he roars in like a spring blizzard, his days of stealing, killing and destroying are numbered. We know because God has never failed us yet. His loving kindness is everlasting.

Besides, He promised.

And God is good.

A Kiss to Build a Dream On

On By Charis PsalloIn Music5 Comments


Our son-in-love, who has been unconscious, but for a few moments, for nineteen days woke long enough to communicate with nods, smiles and grimaces for a short time yesterday. Our daughter’s heart was encouraged when he made a kissing gesture toward her.

His faithful friend, on the other side of the bed asked if he could have one too. “John” made a kissy face and rolled his eyes toward him.

We go on. We continue to pray for complete healing after flesh-eating disease and sepsis ravaged his body. Some of the medical staff have encouraged his day-and-night companions to continue to pray as they say it is only by the miracles they have seen so far that he is alive. At least one of them is not an atheist anymore.

We go on praying and trusting. We have a kiss -no, two kisses, to build a dream on.

Promise

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Man made, Photography8 Comments
In the greenhouse
In the greenhouse

It’s snowing. Again.

This time of year we have glimpses of spring, a bit of green grass, a momentary warm breeze, a tiny crocus leaning into the foundation on the south side of the house. Then hope is deferred when the valley is socked in by low grey clouds and the signs of change disappear under more snow.

March morning

Sometimes I need to look for hope. So yesterday I took my camera down to the local plant nursery to see if anything was stirring there yet .

In and around the first greenhouse there were signs of change with pots being sorted, dusted and cleared of spider webs in preparation for filling.

clay square

clay pots DSC_0125

brown pots

blue pots

barrels rain

tall pots

pots blue

IMG_6722

The next green house was still bare and the third contained a tumbled mix of unsold plastic-wrapped patio furniture left  from last season.

But in the small greenhouse at the back of the lot, someone was lining up pails of perennials on worn seasoned tables. These are the hardy ones, the ones that have known seasons of fruitfulness and seasons of rest, and they are showing new growth. Survivors. Forerunners.

greenhouse

new growth

green things 2

tulips leaves

green

But on the way out, in the warm environment of the shop, near the window, heaven poked its finger into my cold snowy world, and a perfect pure white flower from another place, one which cannot grow here, grew anyway.

 

gardenia 2

 

We, on the other hand,

continue to live through the Spirit’s power

and wait confidently in the hope

that things will be put right through faith.

(Galatians 5:5 The Voice version)

Pray this way:

Your will be done

on earth

as it is in heaven.

-Jesus

Prepare your pots. Heaven is on its way.

Rise again

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Winter8 Comments

rose hips impasto

The Roses in Winter

My daughter had this conversation with her three-year old recently.

“Mom, we don’t know what it feels like to be dead. That’s because we have never been dead before so we don’t know how it feels, and then if you are dead you can’t tell anyone because you are dead….. but maybe we could ask the flowers because they die every winter so they know how it feels…. too bad they don’t have mouths, or they would probably tell us.”

Christ is also the head of the church,

    which is his body.

He is the beginning,

    supreme over all who rise from the dead.

    So he is first in everything.

(Colossians 1:8)

 

Portal

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography, Winter6 Comments

portal

Standing at the portal
Of the opening year,
Words of comfort meet us,
Hushing every fear;
Spoken thru the silence
By our Savior’s voice,
Tender, strong and faithful,
Making us rejoice.

Onward, then, and fear not,
Children of the day;
For His Word shall never,
Never pass away.

“I, the Lord, am with thee,
Be thou not afraid;
I will help and strengthen
Be thou not dismayed.
Yea, I will uphold thee
With My own right hand;
Thou art called and chosen
In My sight to stand.”

For the year before us,
O what rich supplies!
For the poor and needy
Living streams shall rise;
For the sad and sinful
Shall His grace abound;
For the faint and feeble
Perfect strength be found.

He will never fail us,
He will not forsake;
For His eternal covenant
He will never break.
Resting on the promise,
What have we to fear?
God is all sufficient
For the coming year.

-Frances Havergal, 1873

Yet in Thy Dark Streets: The Sorrow of Christmas

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Winter25 Comments
Frosty night, red light
Frosty night, red light

I was very young, three, maybe four years old, but I remember what it feels like to be in a car driving over somebody. I remember the frost making dramatic patterns of the red flashing lights on the back window of the Olds. I remember Daddy taking the blanket wrapped around my thin stockinged  legs to cover the man up. I remember the anxious adult voices in the street.

“…right out in front of me. I couldn’t stop. The ice…”

I remember Mommy’s voice making puffs of clouds in the cold night air as she held my little brother and I down in the back seat.

I remember the hushed voices in the kitchen saying, “We can’t let this spoil the children’s Christmas.”

I remember Grandma taking us into the bedroom and telling us that Santie Claus was on the roof. Could we hear him?

I asked her where the dead man was now.

She said Rudolph’s nose was glowing extra brightly when he learned this was my house.

I asked her if my Daddy was in trouble for driving over him.

She said she could hear Santie Claus eating the milk and cookies we put out for him in the living room.

Then someone opened our door and we were ushered into a room where presents now spilled out from under the tinselled tree.

Mommy said, “Oh look what Santa brought you!

Her eyes were red.

I was very young, three, maybe four years old, but I knew it was my job not to spoil the grown-ups’ Christmas. I squealed with feigned glee and hugged the doll sitting in front of the tree. It was an Oscar performance. Mommy smiled.

Daddy said, “Here, Honey. Open this one.”

His hands were still shaking.

I wondered if the man was with grown-up Jesus in heaven now -and if Jesus liked my blanket too.

Years later, when my children were scattered around the world and I was procrastinating putting up a tree, I admitted out loud that I hated Christmas. What right did merriness and hustle and bustle have to barge in and try to hide pain and sorrow behind sparkly red skirts as if it didn’t exist? Who gave this season permission to trump reality?

I know I was not the only one. There is something about the images of happy harmonious families that makes the first Christmas with an empty chair at the table excruciatingly harder to bear.

There is something about an entire tray of shortbread cookies on a table for one that makes loneliness stab deeper.

There is something about mistletoe and perfume commercials  that makes unchosen celibacy crave illegitimate intimacy even more.

There is something about joyful carols in a church full of contented faithful that makes the struggle to believe feel like being cast into outer darkness.

There is a dark side to the Christmas story that doesn’t make it to the ceramic nativity scenes. We bring in the Wise Men, with their odd assortment of gifts, ahead of schedule for the sake of convenient story-telling, but we skip over the part where a jealous despot sent men to kill all the innocent two-year old boys and babies in the sweetly lying, still little town of Bethlehem –men who had to do his despicable dirty work, and then probably went home to a life-time of post-traumatic stress disorder from what their eyes and ears could not block out in the wine-stupoured nights to follow.

Then there was baby Jesus’ adopted father, Joseph, awoken by an angel with an urgent warning to get up and run to a country where he would be a refugee, confused by language and custom, doubly rejected for something that was not his fault, yet responsible for a family. He probably heard reports of the grief their presence had caused the parents in Bethlehem. Perhaps he had survivor’s guilt as well.

He was born into a dark place, and a dark time, this child. In the fullness of time, the Bible says. The angelic promises relayed by terrified farm hands, and the words spoken by two wrinkled old prophets in the temple had to feed this little family’s hopes for a long time. Joseph died before ever seeing what the boy was to become, yet he dared to bear his wife’s shame by marrying a pregnant woman; he dared to get up and follow the instructions from a mere dream to protect a child that wasn’t even his. He dared to obey. He dared to hope.

There was no rockin’ around a holly jolly Christmas tree with lights strung across the market place and the smell of turkey and stuffing wafting out of windows in that town. The story the Bible tells looks despair and pain right in the face. There is no denial of feelings here. And yet, and yet…

There is hope.

The sorrow of Christmas is also the blessing of Christmas, because this pain is why He came. Jesus said he came to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus said he came that we might have life, and have it abundantly.

There is hope in the midst of darkness.

IMG_8160 dawn Tiberius street ch

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light…”

 

 

 

 

In the Lane Snow is Glistening

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Mountains, Photography, Winter6 Comments
Light arises in the dark
Light arises in the dark

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. 

                                               ~George Iles

Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep No More

On By Charis PsalloIn Music, Sky, Trees and forests, Uncategorized4 Comments

more than this

After hearing reports from friends this weekend who were eye witnesses to marvelous goings on in other parts of the world where people are hungry for God and Holy Spirit came in power, I actually felt a little discouraged. I wept. Why not here?

We are so comfortable, so complacent. Would we walk two days to have the chance to learn more about Jesus Christ? Would we meet night after night, year, after year, to pray for our people and for those who would try to stifle and kill us, like they do in places where being passionate about your beliefs means laying your life on the line?

We are I am so complacent. The biggest problem taking up space in my worry quotient right now is how to get my dishwasher fixed when the only repairman in town is going on vacation for a month. God forgive me.

There must be more than this.

After a night of waking to the sound of weeping and wailing (I really don’t know where it came from) I got up with the chorus of this song on repeat in my head. I’m learning to pay attention to things like that. I haven’t heard it in years and I didn’t know any of the other words until I found a YouTube version with subtitles (such as they are). It spoke to my heart. It is God who parts the waters, not me. My task is simply to keep my eyes on him.

He is up to something. Just watch.

Bruce Springsteen, the prophet. Who knew? Enjoy.

(Mary probably refers to Mary of Bethany who wept for her brother Lazarus before Jesus raised him from the dead. Apparently the “booing” sound at the end is actually people calling “Bruce, Bruuuuuce” and “smoked the world with a 2×4” should be “smote the waters.”)

Hard hearted at Meribah

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography, Sky, Uncategorized6 Comments

Photo: locked up

It’s so easy for tender-hearted people to become the most hard-hearted people around. (Sermon to self alert.)

I have a confession (and this relates to the (B)log in My Eye Blog). One of the things that fires up my ire to bonfire level is when other people turn away from suffering and overlook the needs of the oppressed. I call them hard-hearted (and a lot of other not nice words.) It is totally beyond my comprehension how any civilized society can withhold affordable healthcare from those who would like to be hard-working folk, or turn away genuine refugees, or feast in the presence of the starving, or provide drugs and facilities for terminating the most vulnerable among us. When I hear of anyone being sexually abused or exploited I could march my 5 foot 2 and ¾ inch granny self right in that place and bless the perpetrator with a brick to the gonads –and if anyone gets in my way, they can expect a few bricks to the face themselves. I am outraged that….that…that…ooooh…don’t get me started. I want to yell, “Don’t just sit there. DO SOMETHING!!!”

This week I kept running into the phrase “Do not harden your heart” too many times to ignore, so I asked God, “What you talkin’ about? Me? I don’t think so, cuz I’m the one who gets into trouble for shooting off my mouth and meddling when it comes to standing up for the underdog.”

The other words that keep showing up are “Meribah” and “Pisgah” Now that’s just weird. Who wakes up in the middle of the night muttering, “Pisgah!” before they even slam a toe into a chair leg?

So I’ve been meditating on the verses about hardening the heart and what happened at Meribah and Pisgah. I believe this is what Abba wanted me to grasp. (Meditating is a bit like worrying -but with useful subject matter.) Hardening my heart is not about turning a blind eye to suffering. Hardening my heart is about not having the faith to believe that God has a better solution than I do.

Is the Lord among us or not?

And he called the name of the place Massah [testing] and Meribah [quarrelling], because of the quarrelling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7)

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. (Psalm 95:8)

This story is referred to again in the third and fourth chapters of Hebrews which talk about entering into his rest.

Take care, lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (3:12,13)

The test at Meribah was a big one. It was about unbelief. (Quarrelling can be a symptom of unbelief.) Even the great leader, Moses, was caught up in unbelief and felt he had to go beyond God’s instructions and do something more attention-grabbing on his own. He didn’t simply speak to the rock like God said. (I picture Scottie in that Star Trek movie saying “Computer? Computer!’” as Moe says, “Rock? Rock! ”) Obeying only what Yhwh said to do was such a big deal, that failing the test at Meribah kept Moses out of the Promised Land. He only got to see it from Pisgah, where he summed up his final warnings to the people not to forget what the Lord had done.

The other time the term “hard hearted” comes up is when Jesus is with the disciples. They had just come back all high from a short-term missions trip where they cast out demons and healed the sick. They amazed themselves. They were actually seeing and doing the stuff! It hit the media. Even Herod heard about it. Jesus advised them to come away by themselves for a while. (Oh boy. How many people who have seen God work through them would be wise to take this advice and get away from the spotlight for a while before it all goes to their heads or they start doing or saying stupid things from fatigue?)

When the crowds followed them and ran ahead Jesus was moved with compassion. The disciples were moved with logistics and problem-solving issues and pseudo-compassion combined with a little ego. Their solution was to send the folks to the villages (and foist the problem onto local officials. Can you see the mayor of Punkiedoodle Corners panicking as 5000+ people bear down on Faye’s Diner and Donairs and the Esso station’s one septic tank?)

Jesus told his guys, “You feed them.”

My honest response to a situation like that probably would have been, “Whaaaat ??????”

I think Jesus knew they didn’t have a clue, so he did the logistics thing for them and set up the people in groups which could be easily counted . He even divided the lunch into bits for each of them to serve to the people. But here’s the cool part. Jesus did not multiply the food. He gave each of them something like 2/5th of a bun  and 1/6th of a fish, and sent them off  to their assigned mob with a grin on his face, I’m sure. The miracle happened as the guys acted in faith –in their own baskets, or whatever they used to pass the food around in.

So they were all fed and had leftovers –but you know the story.

In the next scene the guys are out in a boat in a wind that is blowing the wrong way, getting nowhere fast. Jesus strolls by on the water, tells them to take heart, gets in the boat and the wind stops. (My granddaughter has great insight into another telling of the story , which I blogged about in Red Button, Yellow Button.)

This is what the scripture says: And they were utterly astounded for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

In Chapter 8 of Mark the lesson on how to feed lots of company is repeated for the  remedial miracles class. A little later they are on about lack of bread again. (It is so comforting to me to know that even the people who were with Jesus day and night could be as dense as I am sometimes.) He said to them, “Do you not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? Do you not yet understand?”

OK. So hardening of the heart is about forgetting the things that God has done in our lives. Hardening of the heart is about thinking we have to come up with our own solutions sans the power of God. Hardening our hearts is acting like ungrateful victims who do not realize the authority which Christ has given us to work with him and do the stuff. In this same conversation Jesus tells the guys, “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and beware the leaven of Herod.”

Pharisees tried to solve societal problems with their limited understanding of earning God’s favour through their own strict adherence to rules and regulations. Herod relied on political solutions by winning the approval of the people around him.

Note well, oh my soul.

Why now? Why is God talking to me about hardening the heart?

Have you ever noticed that when God teaches you something he follows up the lesson with a homework assignment? Have you noticed when you have a promise from God that the opposite circumstances show up?

My friends and I have been praying about unity in the church for a while. When we talk about unity, people often come up with ideas for inter-church music celebrations or rallies and  picnics in the park. When we pray about it, it seems like all hell breaks loose. Our town is a mess of schisms and division and dwindling church attendance right now. Why should this be a surprise?

One night we were praying about an important board meeting for an organization. I was praying that things would go smoothly when my friend said, “Stop. I think we are to pray simply that God has his way.” So we did. Afterward we heard from a board member that it was the worst, most upsetting, unloving, unchristian meeting he had ever attended. Unforgiveness and wounds which had been festering for years under superficial healing of polite niceness split open and all manner of ugliness spilled out. The moderator was in tears at his lack of control over the meeting.

The intercessors were shocked, but knew that God answered the prayers for unity. It has taken months, but now the group is working on some root problems, forgiving, and dealing with real issues.

We’ve seen this pattern over and over.

In the past couple of days I have read some very discouraging posts on social media about the American election. I have die-hard friends with strong political ideals on both sides (I wonder if I ever combined them in one room if we could replace a few nuclear power stations). Politics a source of quarrelling? Duh.

I’ve seen many, even some with high-profile ministries, bewailing the fact that their country is now officially doomed (in their eyes). It’s like they are grumbling, “There is no water in Meribah!! All hope is gone. We will die in this moral wilderness!  This country has sinned too much! (leaven of Pharisees) What if we elect the wrong leader?! (leaven of Herod) God is going to abandon us! Aaaaaaaargh!” (The fact that a lot of us don’t live there or even had a vote seems to be lost in the ash-flinging. We get caught up in it too.)

But wait. I think get it, Lord! I hear you!

People, we are at Meribah in our history in the western Church. He has brought us here for a reason.

Seriously, is the Lord among us, or not? Are we dependent on religious “righter-than-thou” solutions and forcing people who have no comprehension of a loving heavenly Father into religious rule-minding to try to alleviate suffering?  Do we really think that by voting the “right “politician in place (or let’s be honest –for some voting the “wrong” one out) that we will again be prosperous and highly favoured?

Is God’s hand so wimpy that he cannot save us when we call out to him?

We need to drop the grumbling and complaining and the slick showmanship, and simply do what he asks whether it is talking to a rock or  daring to feed a crowd of hungry people with a tiny piece of bun and a bit of fish. We need to exhort each other daily (including overseers in the church) not to be taken in by deceitfulness and the sin of unbelief.

God is God, and I’m not.

He will provide. We have a promise. In God we trust.

When we remember our past with God, we remember our future.