Learning to Wait

Psalm46:10 "Be still (cease striving) and know that I am God..."

There is a direct relationship between waiting in stillness and knowing God. When we cease our striving and our religious activity long enough to rest quietly in the stillness, we find that He is there. Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." This seeking and searching has been mistaken for activity and in a society drunk with accomplishing more in less time so that we can get even more done, most of us do not have the vaguest understanding of what this means.

The activity associated with searching and striving is for those who are unwilling to exist in the quiet places of the soul where God accomplishes great works that are largely unseen. He tells us to be still and in that stillness, that waiting....there He is found. And that is the great secret of seeking. Waiting is not passive and fruitless, a waste of precious time. It is an intentional repositioning of ourselves at His feet, knowing that transformation will surely come. Waiting in stillness is the divine mandate that most of us miss and so He must orchestrate our circumstances in such a way that we are forced into periods of waiting. But when we embrace this waiting and this stillness we find places in our own souls that we did not know existed and it is there that we see the reflection of His face, the branding of His image. And that is where we are changed and transformed. Sue Monk Kidd defines this paradox as "achieving our deepest progress standing still."

There are divine pockets of waiting throughout life that hold deep treasures and it is only the ones who are willing to embrace the stillness and to wait on Him that discover that this treasure is but more of Him. For years I wrestled with this, acquiescing on the outside but resisting and resenting within. It has only been recently that I have wrapped my arms around this thing called waiting so that I might discover the depths of truly knowing Him. Give yourself permission to pull away, to cease so much activity, to engage in quiet waiting. The "knowing" is worth all the "waiting".

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Friday Jumbles

--One of the blogs I follow is Jeremie Kubicek over at Giant Perspectives. He writes on leadership and recently posted The What, Why and How of Reading. It is no secret that I am a huge fan of reading, both for recreation and for personal/professional growth, and I found this post to be encouraging and insightful. Just sharing the love...cause that is what I do!

--Those of you who know me are aware that I can be quite absent-minded at times. On some levels this can be cute and quirky. This week, however, I took it to a whole new level. A much LOWER level. I was making homemade chocolate ice cream for the bottomless pits that live in my house and had completely assembled my trusty Alton Brown recommended ice cream maker. Or so I thought. After preparing the ingredients and pouring them through the opening at the top, I was astounded to see no churning action going on and all of the delicious chocolatey goodness was running out all over the counter. Now, I ask you...what kind of thinking individual forgets the FREEZER BOWL in the whole ice cream making process??? Uuummmm....that would be me. Obviously thinking was not involved that day. It was a small miracle that I didn't totally destroy our favorite small appliance.
**please note that no small animals or children were harmed during this process. I, however, was thoroughly ridiculed by every member of my family, including my visiting sister**

--Fav quote: "The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want the kernel, you must break the shell." ~Meister Eckhart

--In case you didn't know, having your shell cracked is agony. And that is all I am going to say about that.

--I am headed to the great state of Alabama this weekend for a wedding ( I love weddings). Our very special friends, Greg and Pam Rogers, who planted and pastor Tuscaloosa Life Church will be watching one of their sons marry the love of his life. I love weddings...did I mention that? My favorite moment is when the bride appears because I love, love, love seeing the look on the groom's face when he sees her for the first time and watches her come toward him. It makes me think of the joy it must give the Lord when He looks at me and at you, His bride, coming toward Him. And it makes me want to draw nearer still to Him.

Do have a wonderous weekend! See you on Monday.

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Soulmaking

When a husband and wife come together in the most intimate of connections it is called lovemaking. Love is not actually made in the act of sex, it is merely expressed in a wildly intense way that only God could have imagined. And when each of us joins together in the closest of intimacy with our Heavenly Father, it is called soulmaking. Likewise, the soul is not made in the intimate dance between the Father and child but it is expressed in a wildly intense way that, again, only God could have imagined.

There is an ineffible discovery of soul and self and eternal identity that can only be realized in the tender moments of exchange and connection between Father and child. And the self that is realized is really just the true reflection of Who He is and how He desires His image to be reflected in us. And these reflections of His face in each of us are as unique and different as each snowflake that falls to the earth, not one resembling any other. It is the constantly changing environment within a cloud that makes each snowflake uniquely different and so it is with each of us...our ever changing surroundings cause us to be a reflection of the Father's heart and face unlike any other. This must cause the heart of our wildly creative God to burst with excitement over the endless expressions of His true self that are then possible to be seen and enjoyed in the earth.

However, many of us have been deceived into viewing such exchanges with God in much the same casual way that so many view sex. It is for our own gratification, serving the purpose of meeting a base need in such a way that the heart need not ever be engaged. How cheap and shallow an imitation is this of the deeper reality that He intends for us to know when our hearts are engaged and our souls are brought to life in a fiery, breath-taking intertwining of flesh with the divine. Soulmaking is an incomprehensible union worthy of our pursuit that will move us toward, as Sue Monk Kidd puts it, "recovering all that is lost and orphaned within us and restoring the divine image imprinted on our soul."

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Desert Places

When all of your writing comes from the deep places in your heart, but your heart is aching, dry and arid, it is difficult to string together words that will bring life to others.

Why write at such times?

It seems that many who write songs do their best work in the dark hour.

Some of the writing that has spoken to me the most has come from people who were transparent when hiding would have been easier, and watching them move forward even when broken has somehow brought life to me.

Hiding is easy and avoiding banal platitudes that are oddly suffocating is far more appealing.

Yet somehow people worth following are the ones who smell like the desert. They have known hunger and thirst and barrenness and can be trusted to bring food and water and life to someone else.

Can you really be an oasis if you have never known the aching need for one?

"All of my servants on their way to the High Places have had to make this detour through the desert...I bring my people into Egypt that they, too, may be threshed and ground into the finest powder and may become bread corn for the use of others."
--Hinds' Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard

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Honest Scrap Award

My friend, Cee Lew, from beautiful South Australia has recently awarded me the Honest Scrap Award for honesty and authenticity in my blog writing. This was an honor to me as I have always sought to be both in everything I say, do or write. And Cee is a picture of authenticity herself. Pop over here and check out what she has going on in her corner of the world.

To keep this award, there are some rules by which I (and future recipients) must abide:

1) Say thanks and give a link to the presenter of the award.

2) Share "ten honest things" about myself.

3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.

4) Tell those 7 people that they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving it.

So, here are the "ten honest things about myself":

--I have a deep desire to leave a legacy of my writing that will make a mark on others the way the writing of certain others has marked me.
--My three sons are the joy and delight of my heart and if I do no other great thing, I will have raised three men who will make a difference in this world.
--My faith in Jesus Christ is the foundation of who I am and the reason that I live.
--I love and adore dark chocolate and I hate and detest spiders.
--I desire to travel the United States and see every place my heart has longed to see here.
--Then I want to travel the globe and see the rest of this spinning orb that God created.
--I do truly believe that marriage can be heaven on earth and my husband is easily the finest unexpected gift I have ever received. Life with him is an endless treasure.
--Regardless of how dark the path of my life can sometimes be, I really do love life, the mundane or the exciting, and I thank God for this life I have and I would trade places with no one.
--Two other things I wanted to be as a girl were a world-class tennis player or an Academy Award winning actress.
--Besides my family, my close friends who feed and encourage my soul are my favorite things. And really, family and true friends are what make us so very rich.


And now, to offer this fine award to 7 others (and in random order, mind you):

-Erica Orzechowski of Ponderings for her uncompromising authenticity. I have always respected that she is true to who she is. After all, pretending in order to please others is such a waste of precious time.

-Rachel Grubb of So I've Been Thinking for encouraging me to make time for my gift. I can't wait to see where her gifts take her.

-Bruce Goddard of View From A Hearse for making life in a southern town a thing to be treasured and even envied. He writes from a heart that authentically loves where he came from.

-Joylene Green of Therapy for giving real-life encouragement to her readers on living a healthy and whole-hearted life.

-Eddie Taylor for being a man who lives a life others should envy. He follows God anywhere and he is the same man at home that he is in public. There is no other like him.

-Adrienne Scott of In the Meanwhile for being exactly who she is. I have always respected her walk with God and any reflections in her writing of that walk are well worth reading.

-Jen Walsh of Chair Rocker. Many times I have popped over to her blog and read words that I needed so very much in that moment. Her words are always real.

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Because I Heart This Song

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Friday Jumbles: Beach Edition

Observations from the seaside:

--All food tastes better at the beach.
--Calories do not matter while away at the beach and watching what you eat is completely unnecessary.
--Some people are under the complete misapprehension that swimsuits are one size fits all.
--Bologna sandwiches are tastier with sand in them.
--Coke for breakfast is acceptable, even recommended, at the beach.
--God made spray on sunscreen and I love Him for this.
--It is okay to leave your beds unmade for the duration of your time at the beach.
--Hanging over your balcony and yelling loud, obnoxious greetings at the people walking by is frowned upon by some folks.
--There are actually people in the world who think it is okay to leave dirty diapers and tampon applicators on the beach. This is a great mystery to me that I do not understand.
--O'Steens in St. Augustine, FL has the best fried shrimp on the planet. And they are deveined...bonus points for that!
--It is not considered abusive to bury your children in sand and then take pictures of them.
--Chubby, naked babies running around on the beach are cute. Chubby, nearly naked men of retirement age running around on the beach are nauseating. Add excessive back hair to the equation and you might need to take some Pepto.
--My first book will be entitled "Men With Excessive Back Hair and the Women Who Love Them But Not Enough to Help Them Get Rid of It." You can pre-order your copy in the comment section.
--Certain boys I know think that chlorine can serve as shampoo for the duration of an entire week. This is not recommended. I repeat-NOT recommended.
--Being at the beach requires lots of energy. This explains the necessity of eating 6-8 meals a day. That is my story and I am sticking to it.
--And finally, responsible parents do NOT allow their sons to use blow dart guns to kill innocent frogs from the safety and comfort of their condo balcony. For the record, this was another family with questionable parenting skills and not us.

Have a great Fourth of July weekend!

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