Dare to DREAM Again

When I think of dreams for the future, I picture them as clouds of white in a spacious sky, the possibilities before me as wide and open as the boundless blue in which they float. Just as clouds are continually forming, changing, and merging, so my hopes and aspirations for the future have as well as I’ve moved through my years.

When I was young, I used to fill the future with dreams as surely all kids do. By the time I got to college, my imaginations, hopes and plans had narrowed in scope until they could be pictured in a magazine photo that I kept taped above my dorm room desk to maintain my focus during those often distracting times. Meeting the man I was to eventually marry caused them to change in scope and direction again. And then came the kids!!! In the ensuing years of diapers and dishes, school and soccer, cars and jobs, any plans beyond making it through the next day, week or year gradually evaporated like the morning mist, unnoticed and unmissed once they were gone. I was simply happy in my life the way it was.

The lack became apparent to me during multiple church services in which I was encouraged to share my dreams with God. I suddenly realized I hadn’t any! Perhaps I had become so focused on the present that I had shut down my ability to ponder the future and fill it with ideas of what it might contain.

I had also changed radically in the years that had passed, a commitment to Christ gradually focusing my thoughts and desires on God and who He knew me to be. Jeremiah 29:11 assures us that God has good plans for our lives, a future filled with hope and prosperity, a destiny and purpose decided before while we were yet in our mothers’ wombs. And yet my spiritual vision has still been limited in scope.

And so He has encouraged me to allow Him to fill the vacuum in that area with possibilities that are present within my relationship with Him. When I heard the phrase “dream journal” in twice in the last couple of days, the repetition caught my attention, and the journaling idea caught my interest. I’m a huge fan of detailing what God’s doing in my life in a prayer journal I use on a daily basis. Reminding me that He is as present in my future as He is in my day-to-day, He suggested that I let Him fill my thoughts and the pages of that book with what that future might contain.

I now scan the spiritual horizon for signs of rain, as did Elijah’s servant physically at his command on Mt. Carmel so long ago. For the longest time the servant saw nothing but empty blue skies. Encouraged to keep looking, he eventually saw a cloud the size of a man’s hand off in the distance. Soon the sky filled with the same and the promised rain came pouring down.

I’m simply believing the same can happen again to me.

“For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment.”
(Luke 1:37 AMP)

A Casual COMMUNION

When two friends mentioned in a short span of time that they had begun taking communion before God by themselves each morning as part of their personal devotional times, I began to wonder what a difference the practice could make in my own spiritual life. I decided to devote a month to giving it a try.

It was easy enough to do. A single red grape in place of the wine and a tiny oyster cracker for the bread began to take their place beside whatever morning munchie I had placed on the napkin beside my coffee. I began by simply thanking God for the blessings of the day before. Then I’d review my actions of the previous twenty-four hours, examining myself before taking the bread or drinking the cup as the Bible instructs. Once the missteps were repented of and forgiveness received, I focused on the meaning of the emblems before me, the actions they symbolized, and the freedoms they purchased for me…as well as what they mean to my life today.

The difficult word in that sentence is focused. Too often I simply am not, and perhaps that was the point of this whole month-long exercise - to point out to me that my inattention to what I am doing deprives my actions of the power they might otherwise contain and keeps me from being as effective as I could be in whatever I undertake, whether that be the household chores on my ever-present to-do list, the demands of my job, or in developing the relationships with people around me.

One morning in particular I began my devotional time with a million other things on my mind. Sitting down at the table, I forgot to first check those thoughts at the kitchen door, and was soon munching down the communion emblems as causally as I normally do the Girl Scout Thin Mints they shared the napkin with!

Checked in my spirit, I got another set of emblems and began again. I remained attentive while eating the bread, but my mind was already wandering again by the time I got to the grape!

Stop! Backup! Refocus. Begin again. These are the words that are currently making a difference, not just in my devotional times, but in all that I do.

Twice recently I’ve heard people speak of the ability to “live in the moment”, being fully involved in whatever activity they are currently undertaking. Too easily do I pass through my life only vaguely aware at times of what is going on around me, so distracted am I by thoughts on what I need to do next or what activity is just around the corner, waiting for my input. The increasingly hectic lifestyles we live today feed into our distraction and actually rob our lives of the intensity each moment should contain. Yet we’re not here to live a purposeless existence. We each have a destiny to fulfill, a reason we’re here. If our communion is casual with Him, it’s likely to be that way with everybody else…and God knows there is simply too much at stake in the short time we have left to live any way except fully involved in however moments and interactions with His people we may have left.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might…”
(Ecclesiastes 9:10 MKJV)

The Elusive Easter BUNNY

I very nearly killed the Easter Bunny.

Following a detour off the main highway that took me along a dark and deserted road on my way home from work, we met when he hopped onto the roadway in front of me, his mind clearly preoccupied with the business of hiding Easter eggs in the rural neighborhood I was passing through. Thankfully he lifted his eyes in time to see the headlights rapidly approaching him and bounded away in the nick of time. The children scouring the yards in that area on the following Sunday morning would find their bunny bounty after all.

I smiled in relief that he had escaped the crush of my oncoming wheels when a friend and coworker told me the next morning that her little sister was determined to catch him in a trap in her backyard. Using an old cage from her sister’s days raising rabbits in 4-H, the little girl baited her trap nightly… with jelly beans, of course!…surely the Easter Bunny’s food item of choice. Every morning of the week before the holiday the little girl had gone out to check for success before catching the bus for school, only to go to bed with hope in her heart once more that night.

Her big sister couldn’t bear her daily disappointment and so, with her mother’s permission,  planned to visit a local farm market for a long-eared fuzzy version of the same to put in the trap early Easter morning. The thought of her surprise and excitement delighted us as we discussed the joy of her sister’s discovery days ahead of the fact.

I remember trying to catch an Easter feeling years ago that seemed to be as elusive as that holiday rabbit. For some, Easter is simply about bunnies and baskets, pretty dresses and big dinners with family and friends. But having been raised in church, I knew there was more to the day than that. For me the holiday was about an empty tomb, a risen Savior, and a heavenly hope restored. Each year during Holy Week I would focus on the events leading up to the Cross and hope that by Easter morning I would find the spiritual joy I was increasingly desperately looking for.

Thankfully there was an amazing moment of discovery during the intervening years in which I learned that the peace I was seeking was not a feeling I had to conjure up, but rather existed in the form of the Savior Himself. While I was right to seek Him, He came in response to the invitation in my heart, rather than the baited promises I put out in the hopes of luring Him in. Once inside He simply remained, changing everything about me and making every day a joyous celebration of His presence within me.

Perhaps that was why an elderly lady’s comment this past week caught my attention. She said that for her, Easter was just another day. She understood and loved the meaning behind it, but that the day itself meant nothing more than the one before or the one that would come after it.

That bothered me at the time; I thought it sad that she found nothing to celebrate in the day itself. But when Easter is a mindset, not single day of celebration, then every day can be filled with resurrection power, joy, and wonder that He lives within your heart.

“[May you know] his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead.”
(Ephesians 1:19-20) 

An Amazing ANNIVERSARY

Anniversaries have been on my mind a lot of late.

Today I’m celebrating the one-year anniversary of friendships I made during last year’s Blogging from A to Z Challenge. (Special thanks to Challenge founder ARLEE BIRD for all the fun of the annual April event!) A few days ago marked the 8-year anniversary of the day I started working at my current job. And just recently my in-laws celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary.

65 years. Can you imagine?

They celebrated the day in a big way, of course. My mother-in-law brought cakes to the coffee hour after the Sunday morning service at their church that week to share the moment with the many people who love them in their congregation and to acknowledge God’s presence in their pairing. A huge bouquet of roses, lilies, and other blooms graced the main table in the fellowship hall, a surprise delivery from their children. Those family members who live in the area joined them for the day, in service and in celebration. And all week long in rainy Oregon they were drenched with love in a card shower that brought greetings from people all over the nation who knew them and wanted a chance to wish them well.

But 65 years!

Their accomplishment takes the breath away from those of us who sometimes have a hard time being in a room with the same person for more than 10 minutes at a stretch! Surely there was a lot of give and take in those years, a lot of letting go of little things and holding on tightly to the things that gave their marriage its life and vitality - their faith, their family, and their many friends.

Surely theirs is a forever love.

About the same time they were celebrating their anniversary, I began using the latest in a long string of “love” stamps from the post office. This year’s version of the “forever” stamp (one whose use is valid after purchase no matter how postage rates may have risen in the intervening time) sported a drawing of the back of an envelope that was sealed in a glob of red wax pressed in the shape of a heart.

What a fitting picture of this couple’s relationship, one that retained its value despite the changing times in the decades through which it’s traveled, each day a love letter to the other under a covenant that remained unbroken before the God who has only forever love for us - a promise written in His Word, kept in His heart, and sealed by His Blood.

“Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.” 

(Malachi 2:15)

A New Beginnng, a Fresh Start

One gift from Christmas of 1997 changed my life forever. A small journal with a soft, red cover, I remember flipping through the yet empty pages and thinking it would likely be in the same condition at the end of the coming year as it would be on January 1st.

My prayer life at that point in my existence was nothing to write home about, or to document in a journal of any sort for that matter, either. For the preceding six months I had deliberately been setting aside a half hour a day to pray and listen to what God had to say. The results were disappointing at best. Those thirty minutes were dry and boring…lifeless…and I continued the practice only because I couldn’t say I had a relationship with God if I never spent any time with Him. But it wasn’t a half hour I enjoyed in any sense of the word.

On a whim on that following New Year’s Day I opened the new journal to the first blank page and set it open on the table before me as I began to pray. Amazingly, a few short minutes into my prayer time, some thoughts occurred to me and I enjoyed the mental discussion that followed so much that I wrote it down on the pages before me.

The next day I approached my prayer time with something new in my attitude: hope that He would speak to me again. Sure enough, once more there was an amazing new line of thinking that I documented as eagerly as I had the day before. And so the trend continued, not every day, of course, but regularly enough that I began to approach my morning prayer times with anticipation rather than dread.

The results were amazing. By the end of the year the little book was filled, not just with my scribblings, but stuffed as well with notes and pictures and anything that came my way that reminded me of something God had had to say. My prayer life was in a similar state, overflowing with life and joy as a result. To this day I have no explanation for what caused the change, unless my opening the prayer journal was a signal to God that I was serious about listening for the sound of His voice.

And so on New Year’s morning this year I opened the brand new journal for the coming year. Excitedly I inhaled deeply of its freshness and flipped through the yet empty pages a few times, thanking God in advance for all the amazing things He is going to do in our lives this year, the details of which I’ll record on those blank sheets. Just as the book was a gift, so this new year is as well, and I loved those first moments in which I eagerly opened it, thanking God for all the goodness I know He’s packed into it.

As I watched the Rose Parade on TV later in the day, the theme seemed especially appropriate, based on the Dr.Seuss’ book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go. I can‘t wait to see where God takes me…and am sure I will write about it, every step of the way!

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” 

 (Jeremiah 29:13 NIV)

The Horror of Sandy Hook

For days I’ve watched the news coverage about the Sandy Hook massacre, reading story after story about those moments of fear, and wondering what was wrong with me that although I am horrified over the events and heartbroken for everyone involved, none of the stories had yet made me cry.

Something changed that for me today.

I was again reading news reports, this time about the funerals that are now taking place, and I read a quote from the mother of one of the little girls who was gunned down. She said, “It’s still not real that my little girl who was so full of life and who wants a horse so badly and who’s going to get cowgirl boots for Christmas isn’t coming home.”

That’s the one that got to me, because I know a girl…a grown-up girl…but one who is likewise so full of life and wants (another!) horse so badly and who will most likely wear her cowgirl boots on Christmas. And though she’s not my daughter in real life, she is in my heart where it counts, and I am so thankful today that I still have the chance to tell her that she makes me laugh and fills my days with joy and to wish her a Merry Christmas and a life filled with many, many more of the same.
 
There’s no greater gift we can receive this Christmas than a fresh realization of how much the people around us truly mean to us, and to still have the chance to tell them so. Sandy Hook has given us that, and it would be a further crime to let that opportunity die with those kids.

It was with joy that I wrote her a Christmas card today with that message inside. I wished her luck on getting (another!) pony for Christmas, but told her regardless of how that turned out, to wear her cowgirl boots to the table with pride.

"Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law."

(Romans 13:8 NKJV)

Believer Boot Camp

By now you’ve likely seen the picture and heard the story of New York Police Officer Lawrence DePrimo’s act of kindness to a barefoot homeless man for whom he purchased a pair of thermal socks and all-weather boots on a bitterly cold night in November. The story has touched hearts all around the globe after the photo was posted on Facebook and became an instant internet sensation.

What struck me most about the incident was that the officer said he hadn’t given a thought to spending the money on the man; he simply saw a need and met it, considering it part of his job.

Part of his job. Oh, that we would catch that, and remember that as believers we, too, are here to be a blessing, to give rather than receive, to put others’ cold feet and hungry bellies ahead of our own financial bottom line. Living generously ought likewise to be the natural outflow of our grateful hearts, a way of life that doesn’t require conscious thought but becomes as natural as breathing; we take His love in, and we give it back out, repeatedly, perpetually, endlessly, in any way we can.

Without giving it a thought. Sadly, too many of us live life the other way, so focused on keeping our own heads above water that it simply doesn’t occur to us to throw a life ring to those struggling along beside us. Stories like this one are important because they remind us of our purpose and inspire us to be living outwardly instead of thinking only of ourselves. Perhaps that’s why the Bible tells us to fix our eyes on the good things around us and to think on those things. What we see before us continually is recreated in our lives.

More recent news stories reveal that the boot beneficiary’s actions after the fact have been less than stellar, but they in no way negate the goodness of the policeman’s actions or devalue the choice that he made. Our actions stand on their merit alone and will eventually be judged accordingly.

Perhaps we’d be wise to give them some thought after all.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.”
(Philippians 4:8)