Up the Sunbeam

I watched the news this morning. Ever feel like Henny Penny was right and the sky really is falling? Bombs in far away places, more than 100 killed, mostly women and children . . . The powers that be, fighting for the lives of fish and animals while they callously starve people and abort babies . . . World leaders promising to save the world while they try to steal our freedom . . . A 15 year old girl gang-raped while a crowd of onlookers just watched the sh ow . . . A 7 year old girl, slain, discarded with the trash, laid to rest in a coffin excruciatingly small . . . How bleak the view wher e there aren't shades of grey black enough to do justice to the darkness of the scenes played out before our incredulous eyes. What do we do when it looks so impenetrably dark? How do we keep from giving in to the sadness and fear and hopelessness of a despairing world? Even worse, what do we do about a world blinded to the darkness to the point that some even call darkness light....

To follow--in Greek, to be in the same way with, i.e. To accompany (specially, as a disciple) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You se e them every time you go to the mall. Brightly lit kiosks heavy-laden with their wares. They're like little mini-stores with pizzazzy products, usually lending themselves to a hype-filled demonstration. The gizmos and gadgets all have some kind of "wow factor" that the proprietor hopes is significant enough to get shoppers to stop and say "Oooh . . . Ahhh . . . Wow! I want one!" Lots of people don't stop. Others stop and watch, only to walk away empty-handed. The prized few stop . . . watch . . . and believe in the product enough to m ake the purchase. No one in the history of earth had more of a genuine wow factor than Jesus did as He went around the countryside doing miracle after miracle. He had a timeless message and could back up all His claims. He gave none of His energy to hype, but He c...

-- Hustle . . . hurry . . . faster, faster, faster!! Rushing, harried thoughts run like a drum beat through life. Giving attention to organization helps, but even then, there is so much to do and it all seems tied to a deadline of some kind. I rarely feel like I have the permission of . . . I don't know, the cosmos I guess, to make time for rest. If I'm not accomplishing something, achieving something measurable, I'm wasting time, right? My husband, my children, my parents, my Heavenly Father ALL tell me to take time to refresh, but . . . too often I don't, at least not in meaningful ways. I find myself instead stealing time from responsibilities in a series of little minutes-long chunks, and then feeling guilty for having stolen them, thinking, "I should be doing ______________, and ______________, and _____________, not goofing off!" Guilt, guilt, guilt. Then when I hear my Heavenly Father's prompting, "Why don't you go for a walk a...

-- The mallets touch the cymba l, b arely moving at first, then rising higher and faster with each repetition until the cymbal sing s out in a crescendo of sound. I have come to love percussion, all the more because I've learned to single it out in the listening because of Drummer-Boy, who came to the world with percussion in his soul. A cymbal is a beautiful instrume nt, both to look at and to hear--it can be a tinkling timepiece or a crashing splash of sound, a metallic accent, or the clanging main event. Did you ever notice that a cymbal is silent until the drummer strikes it? Something has to happen to make it vibrate and send sound waves through space. It can't ring of its own accord. There is more music in my home. She-So-Sweet sets her bo w o n v iolin strings and calls from them the sweetest music. Her music can make you laugh, break your heart or set your spirit to glorious flights of fancy. Sometimes my heart nearly aches with the beauty of it. As l...

-- Firewood that won't burn just isn't worth a diddly! The storm had been blustering all day as each of us went about our various activities--Hero Husband at work, me at my Bible study, Drummer-Boy taking college mid-terms and She-So-Sweet making 8th grade look easy. At the store on the way home, the kids and I picked up a few things we needed. "Please Mom, can we have a fire?" Hero Husband was doing a guest lecture at Drummer-Boy's college, so it would be up to me. Against my better judgment, and indulging my own love of fires in the fireplace on cool autumn evenings, I helped them get the fireplace ready. I tried all the tricks I knew for building fires correctly and effectively, but the dry-as-a-bone log WOULD. NOT. CATCH. FIRE. It would t ease us and act like it just might, and then, nope! Just smoke and half-hearted little embers only on the very surface. Smoke, smoke and more smoke, until we were choking on it, but no bright, happy flame, no war...

-- It's been a busy week. For you too, I bet. Life in 2009 just seems to be that way, doesn't it? I think there are moments in every busy week where we know we have to keep going, but our want-to is running low and we need a second wind. We need a boost, something to perk us back up and keep us in the game! Wanna see my 1-second Pep Rally? Here it is: When I hit those moments where I face the choice to keep after it, or instead, to get distracted, fizzle out, get lazy, or just don't feel like doing what it takes to finish the race, this picture gives me the boost I need. IT FIRES ME UP!! It illustrates dedication so admirable that it motivates me to keep going when my flesh tries to pull me off course. It is the intensity I see in this picture that makes this my 1-second pep rally! When I look at it, I can still feel the ground shake under those thundering hooves, I can still taste the dust churned up by the horse digging in to make that tight seco nd-ba...

-- Yesterday I had a fender bender. Thankfully, no one was hurt! It was minor as collisions go, but even the smallest accident leaves you feeling shaky and rattled. To top it all off, the lady in the other car was snotty and accusing, certain I was dolt or imbecile or both. In the back of my mind, I kept wondering, God, why didn't you prevent this? How is this good? We do NOT need this!! I apologized to my Father later for my accusing tone, and thanked Him that it wasn't more serious and for His protection. He hugged my heart and whispered, No worries love, you're only dust. We would really, really love it if God WOULD do all that He COULD do to prevent difficulties and to ensure safety, health, prosperity and happiness. When He doesn't, we are tempted to question His love or wonder if He is really powerful. This is a dilemma as old as Eden, and we probably aren't significantly closer to understanding it than Adam and Eve were. One thing I have le...

-- I come from a long line of worry warts. Both my grandmothers were masters of the art of fretting. My mother, to her credit, has greatly overcome many of her worrying tendencies by choosing to pray instead, but she would be the first to tell you that the worry gene is a tough one to overcome. When I left home at 18 to go to a Bible college 1200 miles from home, my fledgling ability to worry went into overdrive. Every time the phone rang, my imagination flashed a scene of hearing horrible news of a catastrophic car accident that had killed my entire family, leaving me alone in the world. If I was meeting someone and they were a few minutes late, I just knew they were dead in a ditch somewhere. I felt as though I was constantly one heartbeat away from being blindsided by tragedy. Somehow, worry felt like a small measure of control--if I worried about everything, at least if it did happen, it wouldn't take me by surprise. You hear the stories all the time--"I though...