Up the Sunbeam

-- When you become a mother (or a father), you can never anticipate all that you are saying yes to.  If you're wise you'll let the prayers fall from your lips like raindrops. Three times life has blossomed within, twice I have delivered beautiful, healthy babies into the world.  Three times I have known the rending of my heart to make room for the flood of love it would have to hold as a new life came to be; one of those times I had to release that too-brief little life to heaven in the sorrow of an early miscarriage , and twice I have been blessed to watch those new lives grow into the amazing children God chose me to mother. I was a few months pregnant with She So Sweet the first time I heard the song "Breath of Heaven" by Amy Grant.  I was nervous in those early months, especially when complications came that felt like a repeat of the miscarriage.  As I prepared to go home from a scary trip to the ER, relieved to get good news but still shaken, the male n...

  In Oakland, California, in a park called Fairyland,   dwells this beautiful little church, where the main thing is still the main thing.   These pictures were taken in 2002, and it had been almost that long since we felt this good in church.   We visited a new church on Sunday. I won't even tell you (because I can't remember them all) how many first time visits to new churches we've made over the last eight years. That all those visits were necessary is tremendously sad to me and if it could have been otherwise, we would have found that far preferable. Lest you think we must be chronically dissatisfied, critical, fickle and flighty, let me add that before these eight years of moving from church to church, we were at the same church for over thirteen years, and tried like crazy not to have to leave that one. I am also not going to tell you all the reasons for leaving the churches we've left after attending for periods of months and sometimes for yea...

-- It's my birthday today. Two years ago, I wrote a birthday contemplation about peeling away the old to reveal the growth underneath.  I looked to the manzanita tree to visualize the process of becoming . Time went by. Ten months ago I wrote about how I was Thinking About Thinking , and praying for God to continuously untangle me from the sometimes unintentional, but destructive thinking that was determining my actions.  Time went by. At the beginning of 2011 I wrote reluctantly about my struggle with my weight and my desire to see God's strength victorious in the place of my greatest weakness and failure.  I discovered my need for a new perspective and a good attitude toward a life-long problem.  Time went by. A little over four months ago I wrote about a bizarre encounter  that held up a mirror to my heart. That mirror shockingly revealed the truth, I was my own mean girl! From the moment I realized I was actually mistreating  an Image-bea...

-- When do you suppose it happens?  Where along the way do we begin to become things we're not?  And at what point do we stop becoming the things we are . . . or get sidetracked, anyway? Why are we tempted to squeeze ourselves into molds other than what God designed us to be?  How is it that sometimes we're not even sure we KNOW what He wants us to be?  "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Are you any of the things you thought you'd be?  Sometimes, even when we are grown up, we're not sure if we know the answer to that question, and being what we'll be feels as far distant as it did when we were children, . . . maybe farther. It can't possibly be for lack of options.  In our time, the options are practically limitless!  Maybe there are too many options, and we just can't zero in on what our "thing" is. Maybe we have a vague idea or bits and pieces that seem unrelated, but we can't quite nail it down to an elevator speech t...

-- Years have come and gone since I got the first phone call . . . and the second. Twice in two weeks a well-regarded ministry leader here in my area called to make an invitation. Both times she said that while praying about a ministry position she needed to fill, my name came to her mind, and she wondered if I would be interested. I had only recently learned that I wasn't required to give an automatic yes to everything I was asked to do, so I flexed my new muscle and twice told her I would pray about it. The reason she called twice is that the first time, I told her no. I had, true to my word, prayed and asked God whether He would have me take this position. There was nothing in my seeking of Him that gave me even the slightest whisper of a "yes" answer. I then talked to Hero Husband, and he agreed with me for many reasons that it didn't seem that I should do it. When the second call came, I was a little confused, and almost wavered, but since I believe God is p...

-- Grace is not our native language. In our development from infancy onward, it's clear that we are neither graceful nor gracious at birth. Our first attempts at moving our ungainly, head-heavy bodies from one place to another are clumsy and peppered with tumbles and crash landings--no, we are NOT naturally graceful. When my daughter was little, I saw in her pediatrician's office a poster listing the "Toddler Rules of Possession": 1. If I like it, it's mine. 2. If it's in my hand, it's mine. 3. If I can take it from you, it's mine. 4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine. 5. If it's mine, it must NEVER appear to be yours in anyway. 6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine. 7. If it looks just like mine, it is mine. 8. If I saw it first, it's mine. 9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine. 10. If it's broken, it's yours. I laughed out loud...