Pheasant-Hunting with a Pen & Author in Turkey

Stabbing in the black plastic fork, I pulled it back. Speared green spinach leaves, tangy apple squares, and salty slivers of Swiss cheese dangled haphazardly for a moment. Self-consciously helping a few stray spinach stems back into my mouth, I pulled the Bible closer with my other hand.

Photo Credit: Flickr User K. Hurley, Creative Commons cc license

Paul, one of the authors of the Bible, had penned words from ancient Turkey. Their poetic beauty and powerful life-changing truths grabbed me, yet I found myself stopping to read and re-read them.

Do Bible sections trip you up sometimes too? Paul's long sentences drip with parenthetical clauses and commas. I find myself tracking subject-verb trails like a pheasant hunter or an editor with a red pen. As the words-lover in me grows and stretches taller each year, I discover that my method of studying and learning has changed too.

Armed with pens, colored pencils, and endless notebooks, I've learned that writing out Paul's sentences and diagramming them reveals new beauty and understanding to me. Dissecting his subjects, verbs, prepositions, and clauses, I suddenly see his passages flood with clearer meaning. Patterns and repeated words pop out. Joy pours in. The words hum with intensity, and my eyes trace and re-trace the lines. "Wow, look at this!" I point to friends and family nearby.

Today I diagrammed four verses from the book named after the Turkish city of Ephesus. Sentences by a Roman Jew, imbued with the Creator's Spirit, sizzled excitement and truth to my European-American heart. Grab your plate and join me?

I pray that out of his glorious riches
he may strengthen you with power
through his Spirit in your inner being, 
so that
Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. 

And I pray that you, 
being rooted and established in love,
may have power, 
together with all the saints, 
to grasp
          How WIDE
          and LONG
          and HIGH
          and DEEP
is the love of Christ,

and to know
this love that surpasses knowledge 
--that you may be filled
to the measure
of all the fullness of God.                              (Ephesians 3:16-19)


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A Verse that Can Carve New Meaning into You and Me

It was like tearing up a Rembrandt. Okay, not a Rembrandt, but still.

Painted by Rembrandt van Rijn, photographed by flikr user freeparking, Creative Commons, cc license

With several flicking hand waves, her eraser eradicated half her drawing. The intricately-sketched figure of a woman was now gone.

"It's all right, Mom," she laughed. "I can do it again." Bending her head, she worked intently, her penciled hand flitting, shading, and bringing to life people on the page.

A verse from Romans has held my attention this week, tangling in with a line from a song. The verse is a familiar one, but the last two words have sketched in meaning for me in a way I've never seen before. The first section of the verse rings in recognizable cadence: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed..."

Suffering is a strong word that I won't lay claim to too quickly, but I insert "hard times, painful situations, hurts, losses, or struggles" into the verse for me and continue reading.

Those hard times are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed -- ah, yes, I'm familiar with this concept, I nodded. Growing up, I've been excited for heaven someday to see more of God's beauty and glory, looking forward to getting to know him more intimately, and seeing more clearly his plan and stories throughout creation's history. The glory of that over-arching plotline will be spectacular!

But the verse ended differently than I was used to seeing, and it halted me. Reading the last two words again and again, I saw "in us." The glory that will be revealed in us?

The song lyric that had caught my breath and tangled up into this verse unraveled: "There is healing in the pain." Healing doesn't need to wait until the pain is past. Healing happens in the hurt, during the pain.

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us," our Artist God inspired Paul to say about you and me. Yes, God's own glory and splendor can't be topped, but that he would say, "Your hard days and times, Jen, are not worth comparing to the beauty I am sculpting in you. There is healing in the pain. The beauty of me in you, of your spirit and will being shaped and molded into a work of art is worth it."

On the black leather couch downstairs, my daughter has already drafted another female form in grey lead. She was never worried with occasional erasures and re-writes because she had the final product in mind, and it was a work of art.

The woman on the page will be glorious art, to be revealed by the Artist in his time.

You are a work of art, my friend, and our Artist God gets all the credit. Pulling my Bible nearer and turning my heart and face to him, I'm trusting the process.

Pull Up a Chair With Me?

Sunlight slants sideways from the east -- left through rippled green maple leaves -- onto the black metal patio table, green canvas umbrella, and light-tufted flower plants of orange, red, and yellow. The feathery Celosia plumes are beautiful and I find my eyes drawn here often.

Cotton seeds circle and float in aimless patterns; the breeze is desultry, slight. A thumbnail-sized tan and grey moth flutters and lands on the glass deck door. A cotton seed entangles in a maple leaf's margins for a moment before it flips up and is free and gone.

I return to the Bible book of Romans, my second glass of cold sweet coffee halfway through and my green water bottle the same. Romans 8 continues from the last time I picked it up. Wow, that "the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you." That He would live in me is unfathomable sometimes.

You live in me, God? You "make your home with me"? You are Immanuel, "God with us." God who dwells, tents, lives with me, IN me. Thank you, God. You honor me with your presence.

"Yes, I found it! Zank you, God," chirps my youngest son. All six and a half years of him have just scrambled up from under the table where he found a missing Lego piece. This is the second time he has burst into thanking God for something this morning. I love it, and yet his next sentence unnerves me.

"I won! Zank you, God!" His "th's" are sometimes still "Z's" and I crack a sheepish smile at that and the fact that he has just thanked God for winning an Ipad game. I am grinning and yet wondering if a conversation is due now that God has been credited for an electronic game victory. No, I'll wait to see how the future unfolds. I'd rather he be growing and seeing gratitude in the things around him than not.

The verses in Romans continue, moving into a new thought, and I write out verses in my journal, underlining and interacting with the material. Faced with the God of the Universe's statements of residence and his connected thoughts, I am forced to take stock of my responses and actions. My pen scrambles and scrawls. Question marks top sentences, and yet my response flows back into gratitude as well.

That you live in me?! Wow. The wonder of that should never cease to amaze me.

An ethereal transparent sheath of cotton seed has snagged on a yellow tufted plant in my garden box. At times out of sight, at times undulating in the breeze,  it's all I notice now. Tremors on a still plant that dance and sway in the slight wind around it. The seed senses and responds to the air around it in a way the plant is too firmly rooted to the earth to do in kind. By the cotton seed's tremors and dance, however, I can see the air's constant currents.

It reminds me of the spirit dancing in me too.

Of Blood Oranges, Butterflies, & Martha Stewart Gaffs

Smoke told me the oven was hot. This is what Martha Stewart moments look like at our house. Shaving up curling cold spoonfuls of cookie dough from my chilled bowl of chocolate chip and butterscotch cookies, I mold and form them into balls.

Once two buttered sheets of them are in the oven, I take a few steps into the kitchen and crouch down to peer into the butterfly box my kindergartener and I made. Two butterflies stand frailly, flexing their red, brown and orange wings, pumping them with color. Vivid red puddles spread out across white tissue paper on the cardboard floor, remnants of creation's paints. ("This is natural," the butterfly brochure assures us.)

Three cocoons wait silent, suspended, and we check them often.

"Do you think there will be a third butterfly tomorrow morning?" I ask Daniel as I kiss his face and pull the blankets up around him in bed. "Do they come out from their cocoons in the dark?" we wonder and stare off, imagining one, two, or three new butterflies the next day.

We placed blood oranges in their box home this evening, slices of dark magenta citrus. They haven't eaten them yet, and we peek in regularly to see if they will.

There's a passage in the Bible book of Acts that I have been thinking about this week. In Acts 24-27, Paul is in prison for his religious beliefs, awaiting trial and a chance to be exonerated. Two years pass.

Two years.

One brief sentence holds two years of waiting, and Paul sat in prison, delayed.

I love that Paul knows who he is, and whose he is. He knows his God too. Describing this time later and an angelic encounter during a rough sea voyage, Paul says, "an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve..." I love that Paul hasn't walked away from his belief in God, decrying injustice or defaming the character of God. "Of the God whose I am and whom I serve."

This God to whom I belong and whom I serve....  this God whom, in fact, Paul says, "I have had God's help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike."

In the waiting, in the two years passing, in the cocoon-like silence, great things were still happening.

For you and me too. If you feel like this is an in-between time, a time of waiting, know that life is still stirring, forming, growing. Life is building for the unveiling. "I have had God's help to this very day," and so I stand here and speak.

Me too. You too, my friend.

The cookies are done and crumble hot chocolate in my mouth.

Due to a shipping error, five more butterfly cocoons hang in a clear plastic jar nearby. Butterflies grow luminous under grey silk chrysalises, and the brochure tells us to wait.

What I Never Expected to See in My Daughter's Homework Today

"I'll let you hold the broom, Mom," she smirked as we strode across the parking lot. A deep white bucket in one hand, I crossed the blacktop, balancing a long-handled home-made ladle in the other. Tenth grade Morgan stepped primly beside me, laughing and pretending to ignore me.

Photo: Bill Benzon, Creative Commons cc license

We exchanged smiles, and hoisted our items for a better grip. She carried her biology notebook, a mechanical pencil, and a plastic box of colored pencils. I watched the plastic soup ladle we had taped to the end of the kitchen broom bounce at every dip in the dirt path.

"This'll be fun," I convinced her, cocking my eyebrows at her.

Disappearing down a side path by the library, behind the community gardens, and into the woods, we slipped into a sunlit forest.

"I remember this path from when I was younger," Morgan noticed. "It seems so much smaller now. It's about the same for you, though, I bet, since you're still short," she quipped, smiling at me.

Several minutes later we rounded the corner to our spot. Straddling the sandy path was a small green algae pond, cattails dipping in the breeze.

Starting a two-week-long biology micro-organisms experiment, we labeled glass jars, and splashed in water from the deepest layer of the pond. Seaweed and green slime dangled from the black handle and slopped into our jars. After collecting all the water, Morgan and I arranged plastic bags on the wet path to sit on while she annotated her specimens.

Cirrus clouds raced by overhead. Yellow aspen leaves quaked and shimmered. Tiny willows leaned low. Flecks of green plant growth floated on quiet swamp water, and I closed my eyes in the warm autumn sunshine. A distant dog barked, and Morgan's colored pencils clanked for a moment in between hues.

The experiment? We are to feed four jars of invisible life, letting them grow in tin-foiled darkness, and observe them under a microscope after three to five days. The jars sloshed as we walked back to the car, green algae and black muck floating on top. Invisible potential simmers just under the surface. Not knowing what's growing there, we'll wait and see.

The last four weeks have raced by in a blur of hospital days for my dad's cancer surgery and the resulting recovery period, youth group retreats, school, and a lovely women's retreat, amid the unpacking from our move. What I have loved seeing, though, is the life that rises to the surface from murky waters below. Despite fears of major surgeries and sobering statistics, our family saw God's sweet kindnesses every day. Sipping coffee from styrofoam cups in waiting rooms that grew familiar, we recorded moment after moment of God's kind gifts to us, and it moved us. Life that simmered up from the darkness.

Typing here in quiet twilight, I can still see Morgan's teasing eyes and raised eyebrows as she joked and walked confidently through the trees. And it brings me to silent gratitude. Our God who molds sons and daughters, who sculpts moms and dads, parenting us all, has made a daughter and it is beautiful to see. Life has simmered up from the surface below, and I can but stand and watch.

Our God is growing things invisibly deep inside of us. He is at work in our kids, our families, our marriages, ourselves.

Hidden in You Beneath the Hubbub and Silence

Photo: Marian Beck, Creative Commons, cc license

Green nubby sedum buds have turned fuscia and pink lavender, these knobby plant-blossoms more akin to cauliflower than petals. They've announced autumn on hot summery days and it's only now that I see and believe them.

Cool September rains fell all morning and a crisp wind bends green maple leaves and tall silvery firs now, clanging into my metal wind-chimes on their way. One sliver of a far off maple turns brazen in orange brick hues, ahead of her time on a tree where all else flutters green in the breeze. The constant hiss of autumn wind and tinkling copper wind-chimes sink a school-time giddiness into me. I find myself staring out the window again and smile, sipping re-heated coffee.

This has been the week of rasping electric pencil sharpeners, and splatters of blue and red paints on the table, the wall, and the paper maps as we swish in the four oceans and seven continents in kindergarten flair. My youngest, Daniel, circles items in groups of twos or threes for his math, while my tenth grader meets geometry. Our eldest, John, buys his own backpack, lines up newly-purchased highlighters, and carpools rides to college for his sophomore year.

In the quiet now, I grab some space, reheat the coffee, and settle in to study and learn. There is a verse in Acts from several chapters ago that has been ringing and clamoring in my mind since. It starts with an unintentional joke, and I laugh quietly at Paul, and trace a smiley face in the margin. It's not his fault, poor Saul/Paul. He is bold, passionate, articulate. Life automatically gets riled up around him. In the early Christian church in Jerusalem and throughout the Roman Empire's colonies, eddies of pulsing activity swirled and crashed around Paul. Wherever he went, action waves rippled out from him: miraculous healings, convincing persuasive arguments to crowds of people, and thousands deciding to follow the Jesus Way of life. Dangerous currents welled up around him too. Death threats from furious Jews and Jewish temple leaders resulted in a need to evacuate. Roman and Greek followers of Jesus sensed the rising tide, and hustled Paul off to his hometown of Tarsus, Spain. I picture this hot-blooded Latino Paul -- Pablo?-- arriving home and seeing God do amazing things in Spain as well.

What makes me smirk, though, and where I traced a smiley face penciled-in joke next to the verses is the next line, "Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace."

Peace. Quiet.

Sometimes, we judge the success of our ministries or churches, our dreams, families, or goals by the amount of excitement and activity generated by them, by the number of hits, the pages written, the accolades or recognition, or the number of leads.

And if so, then we may be lulled into thinking that nothing is happening or being accomplished during the quiet, or in the lulls. Does an absence of wild hubub mean an absence of movement?

I love the verse that comes next in the story. Paul, the well-known one, the accomplished orator, the passionate, things-get-done-when-he's-around-kind of guy is gone, and quiet has fallen. Into that calmness God states, "It [the church] was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit; it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord." 

The church had been growing in numbers earlier too, during Paul's time in the church. Now with him gone, in a time where life may look quiet and calm with little activity, stirring and pulsating still exist. Life is moving, growing, changing. Behind the scenes, steady and unchanging, the God of the Universe is working. He hasn't stopped or waned. 

Quietly, steadily, unceasingly, He works, weaves, and orchestrates. And his work? Here, it is to strengthen and encourage the Church. Invisible hands pull in strength, hope, joy, change, and transformations, and he braids them in behind the scenes.

Whatever God has made and placed you in that is of Him... he is working on invisibly. Your marriage, your children's lives, hearts, minds, and spirits... the God of the Universe who knows the stars by name is silently, unhaltingly, arranging details behind what we can see. 

Whatever God has made and placed in you in that is of Him... he is working on invisibly. Those dreams, goals, desires to do something? That secret hope to use your art for him, or to use your skills for him in that way? He sees those and is working tirelessly to strengthen and encourage those good things -- things that he was the one who dreamed up first anyway!

Your relationships with relatives, friends, neighbors, and the people you meet on the city bus? Your reactions and responses to people at work, in the grocery store, or in the carpool lane in the morning? Our attitudes when no one sees us? He is working behind the scenes to strengthen and encourage you (and me!) and to use what's in us for his glory.

The wind continues to blow long and hard outside my window, tossing the branches in wild array. Lulls come and go, and the trees still grow. Invisible, imperceptible, life tremors and pulses beneath the surface. They grow. And I love that our God says he is doing the very same in us, in our lives.

In the Aftermath of Mach Two Speed

Photo: Adikos, Creative Common, cc license

 "Learn from my mistakes," she wrote vulnerably. "I wish someone had shared this with me years ago."

I dished up a slice of sour cream lemon pie and poured the last marginally-hot dregs of coffee into my yellow and brown striped mug. Setting them beside the Ipad screenshot of a "Couch-to-5K" jogging plan wasn't incongruous to me.

It was the jogging that was hard. Getting back into running after a year of not looked different than I thought it would. Determined at first to just practice mind over matter, to simply tie up shoes and make myself run the prescribed amount twice a week had some surprise setbacks mixed in with success at smaller goals. After a week of rain, some offset schedules, and a discouraging half-run in the mist, though, I returned home Monday afternoon soaking wet and disappointed.

My sister's email arrived early Tuesday morning, with no knowledge of Monday night's run.

"Learn from my mistakes," she'd said and gone on to speak of injuries. "Our bodies need time to ease into running in order for the ligaments, tendons, and joints to get into shape. I never realized that before. ...Running can be enjoyed for years and years if you get into it wisely."

She attached a schedule interspersed with running and walking, growing incrementally over six weeks. It was wise and true, and I find myself pulling up the email again today and looking for similar running plans.

My husband and a teaching colleague from church have been working on a three-sermon-series on the effects of an immediate-gratification society. In a world with instant internet searches, fast food drive through's, microwaves, no-wait theme park lines, on-demand products, and quick-fixes to most problems, we have been conditioned for speed and efficiency. And I love the ease of these modern conveniences.

If immediate gratification is the notion that anything can and should be had now, and that waiting is unnecessary, tiny questions begin to gnaw at me. What dangers lie in unconsciously applying this concept to other areas of life? More important than the effects of immediate gratification in my exercise life,  

How might the expectations of immediate gratification:
- affect my relationships?
- affect my approach to sin struggles? 
- affect my character?  

How does this expectation of immediacy impact my interactions with God? 

Resisting the desire for a tidy wrap up, I'm going to instead let the questions hang in the air here with us, and go lace up my sneakers.

You Are Sooo Close

Photo Credit: Benson Kua, Creative Commons, cc license

A lovely foreign-accented dark-haired woman with pale complexion and red lipstick clips words with a heavy tongue beside me, while an American businessman converses with her. They mention churches, the Basilica, nieces dancing in Hopkins, and a local pontoon party.

I've finished my Sunday School lesson outline and refilled my coffee. It scalds my tongue, and I spill two drops of golden tan onto my page.

I wonder about this morning's blogpost I need to write and stretch my legs that, miraculously, are not as sore as they could be after yesterday's run. Successfully getting back into jogging, I ran one and a half miles without stopping Friday afternoon. Saturday and Sunday, I groaned and clutched my legs in pain but proud accomplishment sustained me.

Yesterday (Monday) I forced myself to run again, knowing the second time is always the hardest. Making yourself set out down that marked path when the memory of agonizing weariness is so fresh and your legs are still sore from the last run is the hardest time to run. No endorphins ever set in, and my run looked more like a limping pitiful jog, but I did it. My husband's cell phone I was using as my music player had a battery line in the red, warning of only ten percent life left. I willed and prayed it to last to my mile and a half marker, a blue house that seemed absurdly far away.

Cars passed me going north and south, and far-off hollow hammer falls echoed across the valley. Mountains of black dirt behind an orange plastic construction fence hinted at future retail areas, and a blue porta-potty boasted "Fresh Air" across its walls. I panted and willed myself to keep going.

Green-glinting mallard duck and his demure brown mate floated on a vast rain pond, mirroring a massive blue sky. I wheezed and tried to train my arms to circle in tight arcs and not flail wildly.

The blue house loomed far out of sight and I felt my resolve flagging. Breathe. Don't stop. Breathe. Don't stop. Breathe. At least to the next driveway, at least to the next driveway. And the words became a mantra in and out of my double-rhythmed breathing. Don't stop. To the next driveway. 

Intersection lights blinked far down the road and I knew the blue house should be appearing soon.

You're so close now, Jen. Don't stop. Breathe, don't stop. Breathe, don't stop. Breathe. My legs screamed, my breathing was labored, and my arms flailed unchecked, but the blue house appeared. The driveway line was so close. I pounded step in front of step on the asphalt stubbornly, until the line came. At the obscure chosen mark, I was spent and limp, spinning a triumphant 180 degrees. Everything in me grabbed air and rejoiced at not running, as I walked weakly back down the path. Gasping, wheezing, I sucked air and tried not to collapse in view of passing cars. Step, step, breathe. 

Smile. Accomplished.

My chest and breathing slowed, the valley extended wide, expansive under a blue May sky, and the spiritual and metaphorical implications hit me.

Whatever you're persevering towards (raising kids, a book contract, marriage growth, an art piece, sin victories), keep going. You're so close. Don't stop. Breathe. Don't stop. Breathe. You are so close...


(Linking too with gentle Ann in thanks.)

What an Investigative Detective Would Tell You

A chill steals into my windowed corner at the coffee shop, and I hunch shoulders protectively. Snowflakes and raindrops vacillate past the windowpane, disappearing into flash ripples in the puddles. The tiny sample cup of iced coffee sits full on the corner of my square wooden table, and I can't bring myself to touch its cold plastic sides again. I cradle instead my full-size cardboard cup of coffee, soaking up the emanating warmth.

My shower-wet hair dries slowly. Dampness dissipates while jazz music plays. Espresso machines hum and hiss, strangers talk in muted tones, and business executives open briefcases, pull out laptops, and consult their phones.

I inhale my warm pain au chocolate ("chocolate croissant"), despite telling myself to slow down. Buttery flakes encase two strips of chocolate and, too soon, I'm savoring the last bite, sucking the last bits of flavor from my tongue.

In my Bible readings, I've culled the eyewitness reports and interviews that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John compiled from their years with Jesus. They recounted, reported, verified, and narrated the events leading up to Jesus' death and resurrection. Luke, the doctor, prefaced his account thus:
       Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught (Luke 1:1-4).

John, the quiet powerhouse from the side calmly stated,  
         These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name; adding, Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written (John 20:30-31, 21:25).

Policemen and detectives, trained in intelligence-gathering and suspect-interrogation, declare that the way these four Bible accounts are handled points to their veracity and reliability. Truthful witnesses' accounts of an event will support each other but have enough variances that illustrate their unique vantage points and memories of the event. Dishonest witnesses will have collaborated on their story, and the details will all match exactly -- unnaturally. Their arguments won't stand up to time and scrutiny.

Two thousand years later, the Bible consistently passes all tests of accuracy with unprecedented high scores, far surpassing all other historical texts. Atheists like C. S. Lewis, who set out to disprove the Bible, and investigative journalist Lee Strobel have since capitulated to its veracity and are now ardent fans.

I doff my cap to their prowess and pull the Bible closer across my coffee table. Turning to Acts chapter one, I am eager to see what happens next. Outside my window, raindrops turn to snow and fall faster.

(Photo credit: Snowshot, Creative Commons, cc license)

What's in the Way of Your Beauty?

It wasn't so much that I saw beauty then, but I was clearing the way for it.

That's the way, isn't it? I sat cross-legged in the chilly grass and dug my hands into the matted brown weeds. Several grass heads slid easily into my hands, but the roots remained firmly in place.

The flower bed had been stunning this spring. Crimson, magenta, and lemony tulips bobbed in the breeze, and a few clumsy dopple-headed violet aliums stood high in the back. Throughout the summer, the spring bulbs browned and withered, but white shasta daisies and purple coral bells frilled in their place. Since September, though, -- late-August really-- my husband had noticed that it was mostly the weeds that stood tall now.

"Um, Jen, we've been mowing around your weed bed lately," he laughed wryly. "Can you fix that?"

I meant to, and even pulled out the largest, most prominent weeds, but I didn't have time to tackle the dirt itself. It sat, and the bed grew tangled. September and October were busy until this last week. Other projects grabbed my energy and focus, and the flower bed fell to my October To-Do list.

"Right after the retreats," I told myself.

Yesterday was the day. I grabbed my shovel, hoe and trowel, and headed outside. Up close, the matted bed was worse than I remembered. Tiny roots had grown large, snaking deep around healthy plants, dwarfing them, and stealing their nutrients. The weeds were thick and well-established. My hands alone weren't enough to pry them out. Grabbing my pitchfork, I sank my weight into the ground, getting deep into the soil, where the roots clung the hardest.

So often, our inner lives can sink into disarray too, huh? Putting off the heavy tasks of processing, working through, and getting to the deep roots of an issue or sin, we can simply focus on the most pressing tasks at hand. Saying "I'll think about that later," or "I'll tackle that issue when life gets calmer," we instead allow some weeds to gain strong footings, sinking roots deep.

With cold weary hands in the dirt yesterday, the irony was not lost on me either, and I tugged fiercely at spindly brown plants while asking God to tug out the ugly in me too. We both worked hard.

My front flower bed? The soil is now soft, ready. The weeds are gone. Current purple coral bells once again have unhindered room to develop, and space is cleared for new growth. Check back next spring, will you? There is life hiding right under the surface.

It wasn't so much that I saw beauty then, but I was clearing the way for it.


(And counting, always counting gifts with Ann.)

Art credit to Daniel Rozin, Wooden Mirror.

Between the Rains

"We'll have to buy our wood before the rain comes," he mused, carrying in bags and unpacking their tools. Wood saws, buckets, and gangly narrow planks--reverberating at each step-- stacked into the garage or across the hot asphalt driveway. In-laws from the north drove down this week, kindly tackling work projects with us.

Humid air hung heavy and deliciously hot after an April winter. We piled into multiple cars, and snaked the aisles of a home repair store, our list and pencil calculations in hand. We were building shelves, for the garage and for downstairs. In the downstairs family room, years of homeschooling books and textbooks perched in precarious piles, waiting for the three long bookshelves to be completed.

Over coffee and decaf Earl Grey, we worked, sawing, gluing, nailing, and drilling. When the rains came, we inched into dry rooms and continued. Dads, a grandpa, and sons worked. Moms, a grandma, and daughters worked. We younger ones watched carefully as we followed orders, taking mental notes, seeing selfless grace and a hard work ethic. The shelves grew taller. And when the rain came again, we sank into couches for a generational movie night, dusty, sweaty, and proud.

---

Friday and Saturday, I helped at a garage sale fundraiser for our France senior high missions trip. In between the rains, we stacked shoes and clothing, and arrayed toys and lawn chairs. Rain glittered on sparkly red glitter shoes, and melted cardboard boxes. Under a damp white awning, we talked with strangers, neighbors, and church friends. Teens, siblings, and family members served side by side, next to slippery rain tarps and dripping eaves. In between the rains, we dried items, sold items, and then loaded four trucks of items to give away.

---

This morning, I ground espresso coffee beans, and washed up the last dishes before my parents arrived. Rain fell heavy on the deck and yard. Soon two flood pools reflected back the sky in streets and yards.

Knocking and entering, my parents slid off shoes, passed out hugs, and pulled out seeds. "I brought the strawberry plants around to the back," Mom said, bending low for a four year old's conversation. My dad's shovels, rakes, and buckets lay ready on the front steps.

We drank black coffee, catching up on news, snacking on peanut butter-topped celery and oreos. Sunshine crossed the yard, splashing on to the deck and railings. We drained our coffee, grabbed hoes, and set out across raindrop-tipped dandelions. My mom planted strawberries, transplanted white shasta daisies, and weeded. My dad and I gathered shredded bark, rolled back faulty weed liners, and reinforced weed barriers in the landscape beds.

Hours passed quickly, and black dirt clung to our faces, knees, and hands. At one-thirty, under chilled grey storm-clouds that darkened the sky, we raced raindrops to finish. In seconds, we lost and, grabbing tools, ran laughing to the door. Later, we peered through wet windows to see beautiful garden beds and new life emerging.

---

Emerging now after our last rainfall, I snap photos and crow excitedly over each new life. Tulips shine rain drop jewels next to swelling alium buds, pregnant with life. Radish buds crowd in lines, elbowing each other. Pea pods emerge tiny and curled, barely noticeable in the cracked earth. Mint plants weather fierce rains, slipping up to the light. And the ones that get me most? Vivid green raspberry leaves burst from dead twigs chomped to the ground by hungry deer and gophers last fall. The green life amazes and thrills me, surging unexpected from dormant sticks and hidden underground roots.

---

Rains so often seem to halt activity, yet it is after the rains that I see the most vivid life.

Between the rains, life grows. From the rain, life grows.


Linking with Ann at A Holy Experience.

Running in My Head Like a Memory

I have these verses that run through my mind. You probably have them too. They are the verses that I grab when my thoughts start to stray, or when sin habits rear up strong.

They are the verses I whisper to myself while plunging hands into soapy dishwater, staring out the window. The verses I speak out across the front lawn, past the robins, the blue jays, and into the bushes--lilacs with slow signs of growth--while absentmindedly scrubbing plates and bowls. The verses I write across journal pages, tape to bathroom walls that curl up in hot steam, and tell myself often.

I call them to mind whenever I forget, or music grabs me, and the lies start.

Because all sin, really, is about lies. The lies we tell ourselves vary, but the themes are the same: this will fulfill that need; this is justified; this will be harmless; this has no effect.

So, in cadence, I stop, grab the truth and speak them to my heart.

"You were taught, Jen, with regards to your former way of life
to put off the old self
which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires..." 

(--Jen, don't be deceived... every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows." If it's not coming down from above, it's not yours, and you are being deceived and corrupted, my girl.)

"To be made new in the attitude of your mind..."

(Made new, grabbed truth. Legitimate answers to legitimate needs, dropped down by the Father of heavenly lights, but not deceiving myself. Retraining my mind, retraining my heart, my responses, my reactions.)

"To be made new in the attitude of your mind,
To put on the new self, 
created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

(Putting on a new self --not simply pulling on a new outfit to hide the old-- but a brand new start, created by a master Designer.)

"Created to be like God, in true righteousness and holiness."

These verses run through my mind. I grab them when sin habits creep in, or lies trickle into my consciousness. These are the verses I whisper to myself while plunging hands into soapy dishwater staring out the window. The verses I speak out across the front lawn, past the robins, the blue jays, and into the bushes.

My mom? Just this weekend, we whirred along suburban streets to carpool teens. Alone in the car, our talk turned to verses that were grabbing our attention lately. In gentle measured tones, my mom spoke words of truth from ancient Roman prisoners. Words inked on parchment to tiny churches in Ephesus and Greek Thessalonika fell into my car in cadence.The words spoke truth into our relationships, families, coworkers, and marriages. And the breath in me caught, as I shifted and changed highway lanes.

"You too?" I breathed. "Me too! I have verses that run through my mind that I grab and speak aloud..."

We recited the words that spoke truth and focus to us, eyes squinting at times to see them in our mind. I made a mental note to find hers and write them out, adding them to these.

I have these verses that run through my mind.

You probably have them too.

What are yours in this season?

 Linking with Emily at Imperfect Prose and Scribing the Journey. 

Photo credit here.