Wednesday morning meditations

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.


 Romans 8: 22 - 25 The Message

i wish

i wish i had a field
a whole field of poppies
red and orange and pink
and grass - green, green grass
for them to float above
and i'd twirl around
around and around
in them and my bare feet
hands to the sky, all full of the sun
and luffly clouds

i wish i had a field
a great big field
all full to the brim with poppies

How do I love these?

Let me count the ways.

I love the Valentine my little sister Kelsey gave me. She's so sweet, she makes lollipops taste bland. I think she's one of most adorable girls alive, and of course I am completely objective in this matter.

The amount of support and love my church family has given me recently just melts my heart. Almost literally. (OK, don't think about that too hard.) Participating in Communion with them last evening was refreshing, validating, and profoundly moving for me. I love them, too.

I love the voice I heard when I answered the phone at work two days ago. Danika (name changed to protect her identity, of course) successfully completed this program a few months ago and was discharged. We both cried a little when I told her good-bye. I love all of my girls and am sad to see them go, but when Danika left, I honestly felt like I lost a child of my own. I've been wondering if being back at home is going well for her, but, due to privacy laws, can't contact her. She honestly got up at six o'clock a.m. to call me because she thought "I miss Becky, so Imma call her". Hearing that she's doing well in school and getting along well with her mom thrilled me to the tips of my toes. I've been smiling all week.

I love my youngest girl at work. I tease her that we should install a treadmill on the unit so she can run off some of her energy, because a lot of the time it gets her in trouble. But goodness, she is darling. A few mornings ago, she came dancing out the hall, slipped this heart-shaped chocolate into my hand, hugged my head because I was sitting down and she was standing up, and ran off without explanation.

With all my heart. That's how I love these.

Keep calm and carry on

This has been my week's mantra.

"Sometimes," Anne Lamott says, "we just need to breathe."

So I take a few minutes to read design blogs,

eat animal crackers,

and drink milk.

But still I hope to move within the next week.

Or maybe two.

Blood runs thicker

My favorite thing about the past week was most definitely

having two of my not-so-little-anymore sisters visit me.

I may live clear across the state from them.

My life may be full of other responsibilities and people.

And I do love my life

And the people in it

But the fact remains that

Blood runs thicker than anything else.

Deconstruction [still] Underway

"The scary thing about God is not that He gets His own way, but that He lets us have ours." -Vincent Beiler

Vincent stood and said this after a sermon on Jonah. I've been thinking about it ever since.

Choice, sin, and all such things we so easily misunderstand. So easily we cast God as an egotistic tyrant who makes rules He knows we'll break so He can punish us for them!

I think Tolkien was saying the same thing as Vincent in a scene with Gandalf and Bilbo. Gandalf sees Bilbo's almost innocent infatuation with the Ring of Power, and advises Bilbo to leave the Ring behind when he sets out on his last adventure.

Bilbo, just like Gollum when the Ring began to consume him, body and mind, hisses, "Why shouldn't I keep it? It's mine! It came to me!"

Gandalf stands to an intimidating height and bellows, "I am not trying to rob you!" Then, more gently, "I am trying to help you."

It's because God knows how quickly we serve and ruin ourselves, how willingly we choose our own destruction, that He tells us how to live. Yet He loves us enough to still let us choose.

Amazing. I am in awe... especially when I know a little bit of the heartbreak He must feel when we sin and face our consequences. It's shattering. And still He waits and loves.

All this to say that my view of God is still being deconstructed.