Influence

-
Image
It has been a long while since I have posted anything here. I have been busy completing three years toward my B.A. in English and my senior year is underway. My current class (Creative Writing) has finally given me the space to take off the tight harness of academic writing rules, and it feels SO GOOD!! After reading my first assignment, Mom and Daddy gave it their thumbs up and suggested I make it a blog post, so here it is. It is my story and their story. It's a little longer than my usual posts, but as with everything I have ever posted here, I pray it encourages you to run "up the sunbeam to the sun" (C. S. Lewis). "Follow my example,  as I follow the example of Christ." 1 Corinthians 11:1 NIV I sat above them on the stairs. Looking down through the window-like openings in the partition between the living room and the stairway, I listened to the basketball players, football players, baseball players, wrestlers, track athletes, both the lettermen ...

Rocks and Other Hard Places

-
 --
This week I have felt constrained, constricted, confined and confounded in trying to work within the demands of too many needs, circumstances, parameters and limitations. Not only are there too many of them, but they all seem to be at complete cross-purposes with the goals, dreams and godly desires of myself and my family. I think we all have felt that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place . . . or maybe many rocks and many hard places.

 

I don't think it much matters the particular rocks or hard places by which I am currently being pressed, and it would be too easy for a list of them to become a complaint. Aside from that, you don't need my list, because I'm sure you have a list of your own. Life on earth is fraught with pressures and circumstances that box us in. Despite the commonality of our experience, we never seem to get used to it. God made us with a desire for freedom and we instinctively fight to break free of whatever box in which we find ourselves.

Sometimes the hard places are of our own making, sometimes they are completely beyond our control, and sometimes God has led us there for reasons we cannot fathom. So often we feel like nothing is ever going to give and let us have the breathing room we so desperately seek.

Yesterday, I got a little bit of breathing room in the form of a drive with my family through some beautiful countryside, a delicious dinner at an old favorite spot, a glorious sunset and a campfire in the back yard with smores, sticky fingers, and lots of laughter.

Each of these was an "Up the Sunbeam" moment for me that gave me a series of tangible experiences of how beautiful, delicious, glorious and full of joy God is. Each of these moments was also a reminder that He is not just watching me suffer under pressure from outside where nothing touches Him, but He is in life's hard place with me, giving me breathing room from the inside out. 

The pressures of this life will come and go--believe me, I am looking forward to them going, and soon!--but what is always consistent is God's wonderful Presence with me through everything. The spot I'm in doesn't feel so tight when I remember Him in the midst of my fight for breath . . . in fact, HE is the breath I need.
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair . . . " 
2 Corinthians 4:8 NIV
 

Comments

Post a Comment

I love feedback and look forward to your comments!

Popular posts from this blog

Love Wrapped in Flesh

-
Image
Word became flesh . INCARNATION The Flesh-wearing Word lived and breathed and moved among us, sharing our space-and-time existence, for a span of 33 years.  In that mere blink of history, He spanned the chasm between divine love and human desperation. Christmas . . . His coming.  We so easily envision His birth, the praising angels, the Joy to the World, the Peace on Earth, the Good Will to Men, shepherds, wise men, drummer boys--the Christmas card comes to life in our mind's eye.  But do we rewind a little further, go back to the moment where He took off His glory like a glistening robe and left it hanging on a hook in Heaven's hallway?  Do we envision the moment He handed His crown to His Father and said, "Don't worry--I've got this!  I'll go!"  Do we reckon with the sacrifice it was for Him to limit all that He had always been to the permanent wearing of humanity, just so He could rescue us from the dragon . . . and ourselves . . . and our ugly sin...
Read more

Stacking Lack or Gathering Bounty?

-
Image
Northern California is rainy this time of year.  While many of you are eagerly anticipating the beauty of a white Christmas, here we get rain .  Some people don't like it and can't wait for the return of the sunshine, but I like the break in the monotony of weather that doesn't have 4 distinct seasons to follow.  Rain is also lovely for turning the hills an almost Irish shade of green (at least how I imagine Ireland to be).  Then there's always the fact that I hate it when the powers that be talk about drought and rationing water and expecting me not to flush toilets--so yessirree, I do love the rain!! This week brought rain, really more heavy mist than rain, but so heavy you could actually hear it. It soaked and soaked and soaked into everything.  For a day and a half it lingered.  It gave some people all the reason they needed to complain.  I just listened to the lovely soft sound it made and breathed it in.  The morning it stopped, I drove ...
Read more

Simple Simplicity

-
Image
I love Christmas lights!!  I love the color and dazzle they bring!  I love that they illustrate the truth that Jesus came as the Light of the world!  Every year there are a number of houses I can't wait to see decorated! Some of them are so elaborate, I think the people must have to start around the 4th of July to get all those lights in place for the next Christmas season!  I love it that there are people who will go to these lengths, but it makes me tired just to think about all that work!!  Here is a video of one such magical place (I've never been there, but would love to see this in person!)--more power to 'em!! Pretty great, huh?!!  I think so too! Of all the houses that I love to see decorated, there is one house I look forward to more than all the others.  They came through for me just this past weekend, much to my delight!!  My son called me a "creeper" for going and lurking in front of this house, quietly snapping pictures to captu...
Read more