Up the Sunbeam

-- I was stunned at the force of the indignant pride that rushed through me. I was frustrated, feeling disrespected, insulted, and unjustly attacked in an area where I (sad to say) like to pride myself. How dare she?!!! Like the Ashnola River swollen to a boiling fury that belies the bitter cold of the water that courses through its rocky canyon in spring, my heart was boiling with ice-cold, debris-laden haughtiness. The details of what precipitated this reaction are not important at all, and they aren't the reason I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all week. I have been over it countless times in my head, and although I know, in all truthfulness, that I DID nothing wrong, I also know that the thoughts and feelings that were churning around in me were arrogant and uncharitable . . . and altogether unbecoming in a heart where Jesus lives. As soon as that surge of pride hit me, it was like I had suddenly stumbled into a vat of toxic waste. It was repugna...

- Time. Impossible to pin down . . . impossible to hold back . . . impossible to hurry . . . impossible to keep . . . impossible to ever have enough. I can't decide whether to be happy to see 2009 flow away or to savor the last few drops of it--so I choose both. That seems to be the way when I'm grappling with mixed emotions. It is seldom a one-or-the-other conclusion. Today I skimmed through the entries of this year's prayer journal where I have poured out my heart to the God who can handle whatever I bring Him. While it is by no means complete, I read with amazement some of my most intense in-the-mome nt processing of life through 2009, including the ugly, scary monsters in my closet, the ravenous grizzly bears under my bed, and the just plain old ugly things in my heart I had to show my Father. Even more than these, I got to read the answered prayers, the good and perfect gifts, the unexpected Godlight He shone into my ...

 -- 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 m y 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 o...