Up the Sunbeam

I haven't decided whether it was a good idea or not. I looked back through all of my posts for 2011. I want to hang my head and hide. Am I ashamed of the pictures I've taken or the words I've written? No. But I AM painfully ashamed that so little of what I have written has produced real change in me. Conviction is darned uncomfortable.  The Holy Spirit is doing His work to refine my stubborn heart, but oh how I squirm and chafe at the feel of it.  His quiet and steady hand is more gentle on the reins than I deserve.  I wanted to be better than this by this New Year's Day and it hurts and makes me sad and sorry and angry with myself for this disappointing result. Why is it so easy to know things and so hard to be changed by them? Where is the disconnect between what I deeply believe and what I actually do? Father, how do I take all the bits and pieces of truth, the collected lessons I've learned, written, tucked away and cataloged, and keep them...

In shades of winter white, the buckeye tree waits, hushed and still. It stands outwardly dead and cold in the rain and mist that drapes it in a pale shroud.  A fleeting moment of diffused sunlight touches the almond-colored bark and it brightens coolly. A few tenacious buckeyes cling stubbornly to the tree, not ready to fall . . . not just yet. The buckeye tree speaks to me in the days leading up to the turn of the calendar that drops the final leaves and buckeyes on the old year. 2010 has been more than I ever expected . . . and less. It has been MORE . . . . . . busy, . . . rewarding, . . . painful, . . . terrifying, . . . trying, . . . victorious, . . . grace-infused, . . . celebratory, . . . people-full . . . and love-soaked than I knew it would be. It has been LESS . . . . . . plentiful, . . . complicated, . . . home-bound, . . . sad, . . . distant, . . . tentative, . . . fear-driven than it might have been. I am thankful for all the bad things th...

-- Like a painter's palette holding orange and gold and pu rple . . . the glory of a new day comes in vivid color. Painted by the Artist's imagination, a one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-seen-again masterpiece. The day, only just begun, stretches out, as yet unlived, untouched. Birthed in radiant beauty, it holds fresh promise bathed in new mercies. " . . . His mercies begin afresh each morning." Lamentations 3:23 NLT If the tiny new beginning of a new morning brings God's new mercies, what do you suppose the dawn of not only a new year, but a new decade must bring? Where the year ahead is all a big unknown to us, He is already well-acquainted with every moment of it. He has a limitless supply of Himself with which to meet our every moment's need . . . with new mercies . So I wrote Saturday night in anticipation of my Sunday publishing day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sunday morning: Well, just as I was writing about being able to rely on God's mercifu...

- 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 ...

-- Beloved recipes, generations old, passed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter to great granddaughter. Christmas makes me run to my old rusty, greasy recipe box to find the stained and spattered cards that hold the treasured family recipes for holiday favorites like scalloped corn, the brownies there are never enough of, and Christmas morning coffee cake. The flavors of home are inextricably intertwined with the feeling of being at home with the people I love most in the world. A piece of coffee cake, the way my mom makes it , can make the miles between us feel fewer and smaller and bring home-love closer. That means a lot to this grown-up girl who has been too many years without going home for Christmas. It's more than just a piece of cake, it's a beloved tradition that reminds me who I am and where I come from. All this cooking and baking during the last few weeks has more than once brought to mind a story I read somewhere about a little boy who was surpri...

-- On a recent trip to the summit of Mt. Tamalpais w ith my family, we walked a trail that circled the mountain just below the summit, treating us to a 360° view of the whole San Francisco Bay Area from the top. At the trailhead, we picked up the pamphlet that would give us information at numbered markers along the hour-long route. At one such marker our paper tour guide told us the name of a plentiful tree we could observe on the hike. The manzanita trees that were all along this trail were a sour c e o f endless photographic fascination to me. They were shedding their old bark in tight little curly-cues like decorative chocolate on a fancy birthday cake. The previous year's bark curled away as the tree shrugged off last year's skin, revealing a brand new, eye-achingly deep scarlet layer beneath. :::::::::::::::::::: My birthday. A marker.  A checkpoint. Maybe a crossroads. Old year me peeled away. New year me underneath. Each birth year, each pass by...