12.23.16

It comes back to me slow.
I remember first the long cold and the black dark, glowing city street lamps lighting the way. Bells must have tinkled when we pushed open the heavy glass doors- it was that sort of store. A Christmas place... sweet smelling, with crates and bins full of tiny ornaments, and tree after tree, brightly lit and shining. My aunt took me there, one of my mother's younger sisters, dark-haired and vivacious and her nails were always done. She had winter gloves with fur on them, and her apartment was peach-pink, apricot and rose, full of femininity and  loveliness.  I loved looking at her things, and caring for them. Somehow when you care for something, you love it. She took me through the dark cold night into that beautiful place, and I'll spend a little of every Christmas trying to re-create some of that magic for my own children. A little brightness, a little warmth, it's cold outside and here, we're warm. God is in his heaven, and in his earth- one day all will be right with this world.

Merry Christmas.

Late September 2016

                                           Late September, 2016 

         Mist every morning, clouds of thick mist wafting over the lakes, and then the sun coming out, turning everything pink and gold and blue. The lake gets calm and still, like a mirror, reflecting a soft blue autumn sky. 

      Elysia asks me for the extra bread dough from dinner, and all the kids make miniature bread- Anthony a French-shaped oblong, Eleanor a bobbly mound,  Chloe a braided wreath with little dollops of dough in the middle, and Elysia-- a nest. A beautiful bird's nest, and she runs back into the pantry to get a bird-shaped cookie cutter to make a tiny mother bird, for the three small eggs in the center.  I see the artistry pouring out of all of them and I immediately feel so guilty- I was annoyed at them, I rushed them, and what if all they ever remember is me, rushing them, rushing myself, while the golden days, the dull days, the dark days, each translucent moment is slipping by unrelentingly?  

 "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

           Chloe and I are memorizing Micah 6.8 and how I wish I could blazon it across my soul; sear my heart with its truth, the utter simplicity, the utter difficulty of it.                        Humility does not come naturally to me; insecurity perhaps, but pride and insecurity are flip sides of the same coin, and are the exact opposites of humility. Humility means finding your security in something greater than yourself- in Someone greater.                       Mercy doesn't come naturally either;  I want to do things right, and I want everyone else to do things right. In me I find no mercy.      
       And justice? Justice goes hand in hand with holiness and peace. Justice doesn't gasp with frustration as I flare up in anger while dealing with childish altercations on a Friday afternoon at the end of a long week, feeling like if I could  have one moment, only one moment alone, I would be okay. Justice is always just. Justice doesn't make excuses. 

      I know that truly, truly, love is all there is; love is all that matters.  A  mother has the unique task to show the love of God to her children- to mirror the compassion and comfort, and to echo the discipline. How continually I fail! How hopeless I am when I forget where my hope comes from!        

    Without Jesus Christ breathing into my
deadness I will never walk a victorious path. With Him,  anything is possible, and miracles and mountain tops a beautiful reality.

  Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in

        the ways, and see, and ask for the old
       paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.       

- Jeremiah 6 

August 12 2016

      

                                                             08.12.16

     Rain drops slide down the windows, all the earth crying, sad with sin. A storm of emotions compete for mastery; fear, sorrow, anger, embarrassment.   

I thought I was his. I was his!  I belonged to him.   

                     

You belong to Me.          

 Sunlight shafts through a rent in the clouds, warm on my face, a brilliant warm from a bright, grey sky. Peace feels warm and alive, peace says, I'm sorry- forgive me. Peace explains. Peace, like a river, even if only for a moment, even if only long enough for a fresh beginning.            

Two lakes, blue like blueberries under that same, grey sky.  Naomi's hazel eyes, round with wonder, her cheeks dimpling deliciously and her pure, bubbling laughter. Tony's love, in its proper sphere. If only I could wash in this sea of gratitude every moment of every day. If only I could feel things, clear and warm and new, moment by moment. 

 Christ lived his life full, completely abandoned to the pursuit of holiness, a moment by moment, realistic, mystical, self-sacrificing life. 

Only He will make me unafraid of the storms of life- unafraid of my own and other people's success or failure, unafraid of death; unafraid of life itself. Maran atha.

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Revelations 22 1-2

                                                      July 16, 2016

     The evening blue of the sky sifts down into yellow,  then deepens into a hazy peach at the horizon. A few whispers of cloud hover over Mount Susitna, our Sleeping Lady, and there are clouds heaped up in billows over the far ranges, golden light spilling out behind them, every shade of peach and gold and lavender lovelier than the one before it. 

     Naomi falls asleep on my chest and Eleanor is still buzzing around the room, busy as a bee, full of energy from her too-late nap. I do a rough sketch of the mountain and lakes with a purple watercolour pencil,  Eleanor bumping in and out to watch and exclaim, and I realize how much as a child I used to enjoy drawing; and then I remember the day my enjoyment in it died. Perhaps as I learn to forgive one person, I'll learn how to forgive everyone that has ever hurt me; perhaps I can also see more clearly how much I myself have been Forgiven. 

     It's eleven o'clock, and as I dip a tiny paintbrush into a silver cup of water and brush it over the sketch, there is an elation and happiness in my soul, and a hope both wistful and sure. 

And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and

pray unto the LORD for it: for in the 

        peace thereof shall ye have peace.                 

Jerimiah 29.7

H E W N

Find the Weaver, Weaving
Find the Poet in his Poem
Seek to meet your Maker
As he carves you out of stone  

Foolish heart was darkened,
Foolish mind was dull,
Til the Son of God, arisen,            
Spoke, and speaking still

Clasps me round with gentle hands
With kindest words he says
My name, and with that whisper-  
All my life is His.

Early June 2016

                                         Early June, 2016

A small yellow bird in a small blue cage, dancing along his perch, backwards,
forward, two steps forward; one step back.  All his young life he has been in cages, pressed close with other tiny birds, hopping and fluttering around his whole world in the space of two seconds. He sees his chance for escape and takes it, grasps it, nipping gently the sweet brown hand, the restraining hand that sought to keep him safe.

A golden glowing flame flashes through the trees- a little bird like a tongue of fire licks up towards heaven, the bluest of blue skies for a roof and the tall and ancient birches limitless places of rest.
He circles round and round the house, exulting, triumphant, beautiful - he was born for flight, his strong young wings flying swifter and swifter.

 Is this how it will be for me, when I'm set free from this often beautiful but so limited world? Will the colors burn more brightly with God alone as sun? Sometimes I long to taste that freedom, to adventure without fear and to return home with no regret.  
                                                     
Go softly- go softly, my love.

J u n e 2016

                                                                  June 2016

       The wind was warm and the sand was hot, the silty inlet deliciously cool after our long walk down to the beach. Chloe and I go alone together to the end of the strand, where a small creek flows through the salt marsh to meet the ocean beyond.

    The delicate legs of a sandpiper are skittering along the shore as the little mother bird tries desperately to lead us away from her nest, "Oh, come away Mother, come away! We're scaring her," Chloe says.

   We count nine sandhill cranes with their strange calls and wheeling formations outlined against a cloudless blue sky, and a pod of beluga whales, the first I've seen since my childhood, are rounding through the gray water.

    A beautiful place, a quiet place, but there is little peace in my soul, the argument Tony and I had on the way here still echoing in my ears. Perhaps we will be whole one day, perhaps we won't; but it won't be today. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next year. Hope stirs in my heart, blazes up. Dies. Blazes up again. 

     A hawk or perhaps an eagle floats high in the sky, drifting half a mile above us, slowly circling. Naomi in blue with her golden head and soft petal cheeks- what a gift she is, every day of her life. A gift to me. God, make me worthy.

     I've been storming my way through several authors this summer, cresting wave after wave of new thoughts and dipping into the wisdom and insight garnered from the lives they lived, walking close with their God. 

     There is a similarity between these men and women, standing tall in their generations and speaking  truth in their varied voices; all different, but all with this same vein of Truth linking them together, this same Person speaking through them. The exact way you can get an inkling of the beauty and grandeur of God by seeing the beauty and intricacy of creation, you can also see the humility, compassion and loving wisdom of Christ by the way he shines out of these people who love him. 

To eat, to breathe
to beget
Is this all there is
Chance configuration of atom against atom
of god against god
I cannot believe it.
Come, Christian Triune God who lives,
Here am I
Shake the world again.

• 
  

Francis Schaeffer