Leaving A Trail of Beauty

I went on a biblical spelunking expotition ( think Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin ) this morning. I was looking for David’s plea of “how long”. I knew he’d raised it, because I know David throughout the Psalms is oh so much like me. In my quest for the verse pictured, I scampered among these other gems: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” Psalm 2:1 “You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!” Psalm 4:1b “Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning.” Psalm 5:1 “My soul also is greatly troubled. But You, O LORD—how long? Turn, O LORD, deliver my life; save me for the sake of Your steadfast love . . .” Psalm 6:3   “Why, O LORD, do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?” Psalm 10:1  More confirmation of what the Spirit has been impressing on my heart all week. I am not alone in my  anxiety, in my pleas for answers, in my groanings, in my questions, in my confusion, or my wondering where God is in

Following another prompt challenge this week to keep my thoughts flowing and try to be more consistent in posting. I’m a couple days behind on this one hosted by @meredith_mcdaniel, but the Lord has insisted I do NOT overlook or scoot by this first one: ACHE. First off in my head is this—ACHE does not equal pain. Let’s unpack a bit of that thought with the following quote leading the way. “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”   ―  C.S. Lewis A dear friend of mine messaged me this morning and mentioned a couple of different directions I could travel with “ache” as my prompt. She noted both my physical aches as well as that perspective of my heart ache. Using the Lewis quote above, I experience God using the daily ache of my body, driven by a 2001 diagnosis of fibromyalgia, to remind me how dependent I am on Him just to swing my legs over the

I used to think dreaming was a bit like this photo, complete with similar results. I would exhale my dreams out into the world. They’d then catch in the wind . . . only to drift away, settle in the soil, and become someone else’s weed — a virtual nuisance to the ones who caught them. This mindset is directly related to what I shared about feeling like I am too much, therefore it is a natural progression for me to believe my dreams are also way too much. What I have so often neglected to do with my dreams is leave them in the capable grip of the Dreamgiver. My Jesus is perfectly able to fulfill those very dreams He has placed in my heart. However, I am guilty of holding on to them myself, squashing them with my toddler-like fists, and somehow wondering why I feel undervalued and forgotten when I still see myself so far away from my dreams coming to fruition. How do I stop this spiral of unfulfilled dreams from continuing? One way is to identify what dreams I am choosing

Light. I struggle with feeling anything but light. From as far back as I can remember, someone in my family has had a poor relationship with food. I grew up in a household of diets and closets full of all the seasonal clothes in addition to all the sizes for every season. My parents each had their own self-image battles that ran the opposite ends of the weight spectrum.  The number of times I saw anyone stop and admire the reflection in the mirror amounted to a handful in the 22 + years I primarily resided with my dear parents.  My self esteem and relationship with my own reflection was shaped by what was modeled for me. I saw the critical eye of my parents, internalized their statements to and about themselves, listened to their judgments, and I deduced a number of things that ultimately shaped my thinking about myself for the rest of my life: I said too much ( I was sassy from word one ) I ate too much ( I got to a point of hating the feeling of being full )

I very rarely, ( read NEVER ) speak out politically. Most people I interact with probably don't know my political leanings or whether I'm even registered to vote. (I am and have been since I turned 18.) I've convinced myself over the years of a number of things that are blatantly untrue. One of those is this: Your VOICE doesn't matter. I've whispered it to myself, chanted it almost as a mantra, and slowly but surely I came to believe it. What I am here to tell you and challenge you ( and myself ) with this morning is this: If you woke up with breath in your lungs this morning, unlike those who were victims of mass shootings over this weekend, YOU HAVE A VOICE! YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU CAN SAY and YOU CAN DO SOMETHING! I don't hesitate to come to my keyboard on any given morning to share some pretty picture overlaid with Scripture to boldly carry you forward into your day. I never wonder if I am offending any of you who saunter through my ne

Some days are just like that, aren't they? You know the ones. You wake up simultaneously whispering "Jesus" and "what in the world am I going to do?" in the same ragged breath. You long to spout faithful treatises and flowery expressions of God's sovereignty. Yet all that comes out is a puff of empty air. You don't know what to pray. You don't know what else to say. Your neck hurts from hunkering down and pushing on through. Your sleep is sporadic, because though you said you'd leave it in the capable hands of the Lord; you've conjured up a thousand ways you could try to fix it all by yourself in the inky blackness of the night. You balance the desire for the darkness to stay like a comfortable invisibility cloak and an eagerness for the dawn to break and relieve you from all those night time tangle of thoughts that send the morning racing ahead without rest for your soul. "What comes with this new day?" you hesitantl