itsawonderfilledlife

Archive for 2020

The Hope of Dawn

Posted in life, Nature/Creation, WONDER, tagged #annie, #sunintherain, #thehopeofdawn, #thesunllcomeouttomorrow on June 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

The sun is pouring in … bright and warm yet it is still over an hour before my morning alarm.

What a welcomed start to the day.

I sit here and a song plays through my head,

The sun’ll come out
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There’ll be sun!

It is a song that my mind and memory go to … once the clouds have moved apart to remind me that the sun does still indeed exist.

I wish the song would play when it’s still dark and grey and …

It’s been dark and grey here, in the Pacific Northwest. June can be that way here. It is as if nature is giving us that last reminder before July to not complain about the heat. To take joy in the cool, in the pause before the drying comes.

We need these bright and sunny dawns … even if they are soon followed by low cloud cover that blocks the sun’s existence. We need to remember that it is always darkest before dawn.

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We All Make Mistakes

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #leavethosekidsalone, #makespaceformistakes, #schoolishard, #schoolisnotalwaysthebestplacetolearn, #toerrishuman, #tryingishard, #weallmakemistakes on June 14, 2020| 4 Comments »

It is not a naturally comfortably thing to be ok with making mistakes, being wrong. It feels like sand in your shoes, that rough tag in your shirt … it makes us itch, squirm. Maybe it even makes us blush, embarrassed, humiliated. Sometimes it even makes us angry … committed to prove ourselves right, never admitting that we made a mistake.

“Experience
is simply the name we give
our mistakes.”
Oscar Wilde

Yet, learning to be ok with our wrongs, our mistakes … learning to get up after we fall and trying again … learning to say, I blew it, then learning from our mistakes … that is normal, real-with-skin-on life.

“A person who never made a mistake
never tried anything new.”
Albert Einstein

As an EA (Educational Assistant) in a high school, I work with students who have been wrong so often, they often will do anything to avoid making mistakes. They would rather get in trouble for not doing assignments, than to do them and receive the same old critiques …

it’s late
you didn’t complete it
this is not what the assignment was asking for
check spelling next time
you didn’t submit it in the right way, the right date, the right font, the right … notice that the message a student often receives is that what they did do isn’t right … and sometimes, for a number of students, their best is not good enough.

“Mistakes are always forgivable
if one has the courage to admit them.”
Bruce Lee

Often the students who I work with have weak ‘head math’ skills. They struggle to understand numbers confidently, resulting in poor addition, subtraction, multiplying and dividing skills. Though they can use calculators, once they know me a bit, I like to ask them if they can do equations in their heads … but in a classroom, where their peers might hear them, they often are so fearful of making a mistake that they won’t try (or maybe, more accurately, they can’t try it, given the anxiety produced).

“If you want to grow,
you need to get over any fear you have
of making mistakes.”
John C. Maxwell

After over two months of online learning a bit of miraculous development has been occurring … they are trying hard things, risking the making of a mistake … they are comfortably trying head math! And their skills are improving!

“In the real world,
the smartest people
are people who make mistakes and learn.
In school,
the smartest people don’t make mistakes.”
Robert T. Kiyosaki

But this new development came from being in an environment where their peers are not right beside them. In this context, they are safe to risk being wrong, and having the confidence in themselves that, if they make a mistake, they can just try again.

“We don’t make mistakes,
we just have happy accidents.”
Bob Ross

It is a good reminder that one way education does not work best for all students. But it is also a good reminder that applies even more broadly to life. Making mistakes is part of life, it is our most helpful tool in learning, but we must have confidence in ourselves, in our environment as a safe place, to be willing to risk those errors, failures. Once we feel safe, within ourselves and our surroundings (and those we share our surroundings with) we are free to to learn from our failures, rather than shrink from them.

“All men make mistakes,
but only wise men learn from their mistakes.”
Winston Churchill

Maybe, if we are more aware of those around us, we could be more intentional at creating environments where others can be confident to try, to do things where they are at risk of making errors. That way we can be agents of growth and change in others … and in ourselves.

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To the Grads of 2020

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #expectations, #gradduringcovid, #isaiah, #pandemicgrad, #tothegradsof2020 on June 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

What a year to graduate!

Last evening was the graduation ceremony of a number of pretty special grads (one, in particular … she knows who she is). There are many, similar, or quite different graduation experiences going on all around … all around the world.

You, grads 2020 have worked for years to get to this end of the road … except … no one told the end of a road was an overgrown trail through the bush!

“Expectations
are the root of all heartache”

And what were your expectations at the beginning of this final school year, grads? Adventurous school trips, field trips, retreats and over-nighters? A ceremony with your friends, family and fellow grads in an event center, a church, an auditorium, a gymnasium? An evening of formality … dressed to the nines, with a special someone at your side as you walk into a room decorated to take you away to a dreamland-like destination? How about group photos? Caps through in the air in unison? The dances? The many opportunities to gather …

all together, for one last time …

These were the September expectations …

and then, the pandemic …

Everything stopped.

School stopped.

Events cancelled.

Plans turned upside down.

Grad everything in question.

Initially, everyone hoped that this pandemic would end and things could go back to normal again, that graduation events would go as planned. But … pandemic comes from the Greek pandēmos meaning all people. Covid 19 has affected, infected our world, leaving a trail of disappointment and destruction in it’s wake … so long expectations of what was to be.

“Expectations
are the root of all heartache”

Those words are attributed to William Shakespeare, but … grads, have you ever heard Shakespeare speak so clearly? Those words are a translation of what he wrote in the play All’s Well That Ends Well … now there is a theme for grad 2020!

Did it end well? Did you walk a stage, in cap and gown? Did you get to share graduation with friends and family? Did you get to dress up? Did you find creative ways to take group pictures while respecting social distancing? Did you graduate?

The expectations you had were not met, the losses are very real and there is no way to make up for those losses. It is okay to mourn the expectations of what couldn’t be.

There is no way to to redo this ending. This ending, though, also marks a beginning. High school is completed (or will be in just days) and a door to your future awaits you.

As you walk through this next door I leave with you words from the book of Isaiah, to hear from God of his compassion and hope for your future, if you trust in him.

Comfort, comfort my people,
    says your God …
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:1, 28-31

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Above the Clouds

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #abovetheclouds, #covid19, #fear, #pandemic, #theinvisiblecloud, #turnyoureyesuponjesus on June 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »

This season of our lives, this Covid pandemic, in so many ways is surreal. Many of us continue our work, school, lives as always, just at home. Yet, there is this invisible cloud called change and I wonder if it might be affecting us all, more than we are aware.

Our lives have changed, been altered by this pandemic that has touched every corner of the Earth.

Our work, school, places of worship and social lives have changed. How we shop, spend our time do recreation and entertainment has changed. Now, as summer is just around the corner, how we vacation has changed.

Graduations, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and so many other special events have changed.

Though things are ever so gradually opening up, officials are quick to remind us that we are not going back to what we knew to be ‘normal’ but we are moving towards a new normal …

and, well … we can’ see or envision what that looks like, because it is still enfolding. With this, even our ability to dream or foresee what the future looks like has changed.

There are those who are eager to leap into what is opening up, those that are more cautious, or even more fearful. Fear has been on the rise over these months … and it will destroy even more than Covid 19.

Change is hard. Change without knowledge of what is to come … that can be destructive.

My thoughts go back to this invisible cloud called change and I wonder if it might be affecting us all, more than we are aware.

“Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought that there was an actual place beyond the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow. There was an actual place, and we could go above the clouds and find it there.” – Barbara Walters

I wonder if Barbara Walters knew something of that place above and beyond the clouds. I wonder if she understood that what was, what is beyond our troubles, is a place and a person to put our hope in, when the heaviness of life weighs us down.

Look up!

Turn your eyes toward Jesus,
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of Earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace

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A Tale of Two Homes

Posted in life, tagged #alllivesmatter, #ataleoftwohomes, #blacklivesmatter, #equalgodgivenvalue, #helpthehurting, #helpthoseatrisk, #samebutdifferent, #samevalue on June 7, 2020| 6 Comments »

Almost two years ago we moved to our current home, a townhouse.

It was a bit of an adjustment, moving from a single family home, on acreage, to a townhouse on a busy road. The lack of privacy, the noise from the road, the sounds of people’s voices as they walk by, when the windows are opened, the absence of the sound of the coyotes calls in the quiet of the night.

Now, I quite love our home. I love how every square foot is so well utilized, I love my more modern kitchen, the spacious shower in the master bath, how perfectly our basement family room is for watching movies, how close we are to everything we could need.

Our home is lovely to us … just like our neighbors. They moved into their townhouse a year after us. Like ours, theirs is an end unit. Like us, they have made it their own … painted walls, planted flowers … it is a shelter from the elements, a place of refuge. Their home is like ours in so many ways, except that our homes are reversed … basically theirs is the mirror image of ours … exactly the same features and value, just opposite.

If I was cooking dinner and saw smoke coming from my side window, I would stop what I was doing. I would run outside to see where the smoke was coming from. If, when I got outside, I saw flames coming from my neighbor’s home, I would call 911, I would bang on their door to make sure they were not in the house, I would scream “fire” to alert other neighbors.

I would not be occupied about what color to paint my bathroom, or if I should replace the carpet on the stairs with carpet or wood, nor would I stop to change the lightbulb on the outdoor light fixture. Because, in that moment, if my neighbor’s house was on fire, their home would need the attention.

So, moral of the story …

Yes, ALL lives matter, in that they all have equal, God-given value, but when a specific group is at risk, well that’s where our attention should be.

#blacklivesmatter

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The Fair Have Not Been

Posted in Grief, life, WONDER, tagged #blacklivesmatter, #georgefloyd, #oppression, #thefairhavenotbeen, #weepingmaylastforthenight, #whiteelephantintheroom on June 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

No words.

Just sadness.

No response.

Just heaviness.

No answers.

Just … lament.

God, I know you are there, I know that you are faithful and true and trustworthy.

I know that you have been with all of humanity since before time began. That you are in us, that you have shaped us and molded us in the inmost place. I know that when you look on all that you have created, you say, with parental pride, “it is good” … every one of us.

But I ache.

For humanity does not treat each other as good, with grace. Your creation has demeaned, devalued and degraded some in society, to the point of death.

I … I am called fair, for my skin is pale, but those who are called this fair … have not been. We have been anything but fair. What can I say or do to help those who have been subjugated by the fair … like me.

Like Moses in Egypt, like Tubman in her Underground Railroad, like King in DC, the heart cry of “Set My People Free” … free from discrimination, free from threat of harm, free from the looks, free to do and to have as the fair people do … has interrupted our our lives. The volume of the protesters could not speak as loudly to our hearts as the whisper,

I can’t breathe …

God, those words, that scene … it destroyed a part of us all … red and yellow, black and white … (Jesus loves the little children of the world).

Can I still sing those words? Not that you love the children, but naming four (inexact) colors? God, I don’t know the rules … I don’t know the words to say, I don’t know how to be the support and hands and feet of you and I just want to say,

I am with you.
I am so sorry for the hatred.
I am so sorry for the pain and struggle and fear that you live with,

simply because those of us who are fair … are anything but.

This week has been significant, Lord. The white elephant in the room of humanity has been seen. People have raised their voices, told their stories, demanded change from leaders, from … the fair who are not. Social media has been full of #BlackOutTuesday, #blacklivesmatter, lists of organizations and businesses to support (or to avoid), lists of how those of us who are fair might help, support … be fair.

But, some of it, Lord, is contradictory. One person posts this, another posts the opposite. One posts the blacked out screen, another says #BlackLivesMatter matters more.

God, I want to be the help, the change the arm around the shoulders of others. I want the people who I love, who are not as ‘fair’ as me, to know that I weep with them, that I don’t see their color so much as the life within them (is that okay to say?) and …

I hope they don’t see mine.

For, God, the fair have not been.

O Lord my God, I cried out to You,
and you healed me our world.
Psalm 30:2

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Not Today Satan

Posted in Faith, life, WONDER, tagged #anger, #discouragement, #fear, #howfirmafoundation, #nottodaysatan, #satan on June 2, 2020| 1 Comment »

Ever been mad? Like so upset and angered that your heart was beating so violently that you could feel your entire body vibrate?

My grandmother, in times like that, would have said that she was so angry she could spit.

We have all had such an experience of emotion. We have all been, at some point, angry enough to spit.

There was such a time that is still restlessly settled in my mind. I remember the feeling that my heart might just beat right out of my chest. I remember the pounding of emotion and blood flow in my head. I remember the combination of anger and sadness and despair and defeat.

I remember the words of the text that sent me reeling … words that communicated

one step forward, two (dozen) steps back.

History invades the present, darkness falls on rising sun, temporarily eclipsing the light.

The inky intent of sinful man is always to blot out the light.

I was searching, seeking for light … as if crawling in desperation for understanding of the whys, for hope to come from the shadows.

what more can he say,
than to you he hath said,
to you who for refuge,
to Jesus have fled

The words stopped my obsessing, my perseverating over the ache in my gut, my heart. What song were those words from? Why did it enter my conscious?

How Firm a Foundation … words penned over two hundred and thirty years ago … words and a message with lasting power. As I read them I was reminded that my physical and emotional shaking were not more than skin deep … for my foundation is deeper still, firm in the care of my Savior.

Then, the words of the prophet Nahum (1:7):

“The Lord is good, He is a fortress in time of distress, and He protects those who seek refuge in him.”

Reminders of my firm foundation, the fortress around me, the prayers of those who are faithful …

the anger fading with the rising light of Christ’s love and promise.

Not today Satan.

“That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

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“Responsibility is the Ability to Respond”

Posted in Grief, life, WONDER, tagged #breathofgod, #godformed, #iamresponsible, #murder, #responsibilityistheabilitytorespond, #weareallprejudice, Icantbreathe on May 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »

When I read those words, above, in Dr. Steve Rose blog, they resonated in a way that made me think I would need them in the days to come. This week they surfaced in my mind as I read the posts on social media and in the news.

We who can respond are responsible for our actions, or our inactions. As long as I have breath, I am responsible to respond, to speak, to write, to work to change my world, through changing myself.

I am responsible to get to the bottom of my sin, my actions and beliefs … in the light of Truth … the Truth.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13-16)

The Psalms declares our earliest beginnings … we are the handiwork of the very Creator of everything. This is true for us all … male or female, Jew or Christian or Buddhist or Muslim or atheist, red or yellow or black or white. Whatever difference or division or thing that may separate us as the human race, all were created by God and for him (Colossians 1:16).

Behold, all souls are mine. (Ezekiel 18:4)

No other human possesses or controls another’s soul. It has been, it is and it will forever be under the ownership of it’s Creator … we may deny him our soul, but it cannot be snatched by any other.

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Genesis 2:7)

Dirt … that is what we are made of, dirt of the Earth. We are humans, from the humus, the soil to be worked, to produce good fruit.

This is what God the Lord says—the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it … (Isaiah 42:5)

The Creator of the heavens … who gives breath to its people, and life … that is what makes the dirt organic, full of life … it is the very breath of God.

Breath, breathing … to be able to breath is the gift of life, through the giver of all life, for all lives.

Who should take that breath away? Not I.

We who can respond are responsible for our actions, or our inactions. As long as I have breath, I am responsible to respond, to speak, to write, to work to change my world, through changing myself.

“If violence is absolutized, we only find ways of hurting, we find very few ways of solving problems,” Ravi Zacharias

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Going Back to Church?

Posted in Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #ascension, #churchesdontclose, #goingbacktochurch, #meettogetherinchrist, #thechurchisnotabuilding, #thegospelwillnotbesilenced, #wethechurch on May 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I cannot wait to go back to the warehouse we call our church building, to see those who we call our church family, to sing, as a congregation our songs of praise and worship to God.

This is the yearning of many around the world, during this time of pandemic.

Last weekend I went shopping and found myself walking out of the store thinking the following :

my entire church family of hundreds of people would have been a safer group to be with than in that store of limited numbers. Why can’t the church be opened up?

It was my heart cry. Because the people I worship with, unlike the strangers in that store, love each other enough to keep our distance from each other.

I mulled over my experience and thoughts when listening to the news from around the world … it’s funny how hearing your own thoughts coming through the mouths of others can allow your ears and heart to where your thoughts are really coming from.

My desire, though sincere, was morphing into a perspective that I deserved to go back to church, that it is my right.

That set me on a search for truth and there is only one source of truth, God’s word. What does the Bible say about the church.

Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says, “‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?’ Acts 7:48-50

(God’s house, the house of God is not made by human hands)

… you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22

(The foundation of the church are the apostles, the cornerstone … what the entire church is constructed/depended on, is Jesus Christ. We are where the holy spirit lives)

For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. 1 Corinthians 3:9

(we are the church)

But Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Hebrews 3:6

(we, the church, need to stay close, be faithful to him)

And then I found these words, from Charles Spurgeon,

“”What is a church? It is an assembly. And a Christian church is an assembly of faithful men (and women), of men (and women) who know the truth, believe it, affirm it, and adhere to it. The Greek word signifies an assembly summoned out of the whole population to exercise the right of citizenship. An ecclesia, or church, is not a mob, nor a disorderly gathering rushing together without end or purpose, but a regular assembly of persons called out by grace, and gathered together by the Holy Spirit. Those persons make up the assembly of the living God.” (What the Church Should Be Sermon #1436)

In this time of living in a pandemic, the church, anchored and built by God, made up of the people of God, has continued to assemble … in Spirit, as one. We have met online in conference, in church services, in small groups and on social media. We have been the hands and feet of God, doing his good work by committing our work in our jobs to him, by caring for the elderly, the sick, the poor and disenfranchised.

“Churches are essential.
That’s why they never closed.
Buildings may have,
but the church didn’t
The gospel will never be silenced.
It will always find a way to be told.”
Natalie Grant

What I found interesting was the timing of this line of thinking, for it began about the time in the church calendar when we celebrate the ascension of Jesus.

Acts 1 tells us of his ascension :

“They (the apostles) were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Let me paraphrase … the apostles, after forty days with the risen Christ, watch him ascend into the sky, the heavens. They are standing there, staring up, transfixed, when they hear a voice from two angelic beings standing with them saying,

People, what the heck are you doing here, staring at the sky? Did you not listen to Jesus at all? He’s gone, but he will be back. Now get to work! Do the work of the church, like he modelled to you! You do not need his physical presence anymore than you need a brick and mortar building. Go, spread the good news … in word and in deed.

“We are his temple. We do not turn in a certain directlon to pray. We are not bound by having to go into a building so that we can commune with God. There are no unique postures and times and limitations that restrict our access to God. My relationship with God is intimate and personal. The Christian does not go to the temple to worship. The Christian takes the temple with him or her. Jesus lifts us beyond the building and pays the human body the highest compliment by making it His dwelling place, the place where He meets with us. Even today He would overturn the tables of those who make it a marketplace for their own lust, greed, and wealth.” Ravi Zacharias

So that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Ephesians 3:10

It is not our right to go to church, we the church is a responsibility endowed by Jesus Christ.

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Wordy Thoughts

Posted in Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #harrypotter, #professordumbledore, #wordsarepowerful, #wordythoughts on May 26, 2020| 3 Comments »

Why did I wait so long?

That was my question to my son, to the Wonder Dog, to the air in the room as we finished the final movie of the Harry Potter series. I was delighted with the story telling in this series.

It was way back when my oldest was in grade one or two that we read the first book in Rowling’s series together. Though I enjoyed it, I was not mesmerized as it seemed others were, so I did not continue reading them.

In the final film, Part 2 of the Deathly Hallows, Professor Dumbledore says something that caught my attention to the point I had to rewind to hear it again :

“Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.”

Ahhhh! I love it when I not only hear a good quote, but it so resonates with me that it absorbs into my being.

Immediately I thought how this quote also resonates with what the word of God has to say about our words.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 18:21)

“A person’s words can be life-giving water; words of true wisdom are as refreshing as a bubbling brook.” (Proverbs 18:4)

“Kind words are like honey–sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” (Proverbs 16:24)

“Gentle words bring life and health; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.” (Proverbs 15:4 )

“Evil words destroy one’s friends; wise discernment rescues the godly.” (Proverbs 11:9)

” … a person with good sense remains silent.” (Proverbs 11:12)

If only I had the good sense to remain silent at times … (do I hear an amen?).

Words, truly are magical. May we be wise as we use them, careful in how we throw them around.

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