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Posts Tagged ‘Life’

Gardener of my Heart

Posted in WONDER, tagged Faith, gardening, Life, nature, Rest on January 22, 2025| 2 Comments »

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

I love those words, words that paint an image on the canvas of my mind. To garden is to encourage the growth of beauty. It is to motivate the life that only brings the best fruit from the plant, the vine. There is a sense of nurture, care.

But fruit, a good harvest, it doesn’t come simply from a gardener loving the plant, pampering it and whispering sweet nothings. Fruit growth requires digging in the soil, pruning, plucking and burning the branches that run wild, overgrown.

And that hurts.

Have you ever heard the lyrics to a song and wondered how a total stranger could write your own story? But then I realized that it is the song of us all.

It was one word that lingered in my thoughts for days and even weeks.

Break up the fallow ground

It was the word fallow.

And I searched my brain … fallow, that refers to a field that is unused, resting.

But, it didn’t end. Now it lingered in my mind, where it was tumbled and tossed, agitated. And each time it came to mind, my mind was agitated as well. Finally, after hearing it again just days ago, I knew what I needed to do … find a definition an explanation of the word.

fallow
plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production.

So the soil was plowed, all turned over. Then harrowed, chopping up the chunks of earth until it is smooth and ready for seed planting. Yet … it was left like that. Not to leave it empty, unnecessarily, but so that this soil could rest and be revived with the nutrients it needs when planting time comes.

(this is where the silent, knowing smile appeared across my face)

There have been fallow seasons in my life. Seasons that lasted far more than weeks or months. My fallow seasons, they lasted years. Years when I was turned and smooth … when I was ready for planting, but …

I was left.

I sat still.

Unused.

Empty.

With no purpose …

But, there was purpose in those fallow seasons. During those seemingly useless years, it was then that I was given opportunity to rest and be fed with what would be needed, when the time of seed-planting comes.

And it does come, maybe not the seeds you might expect, but God does not plow and harrow then leave his precious soil fallow forever …

So be the gardener of my heart
Tend the soil of my soul
Break up the fallow ground

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‘Real’ Life

Posted in WONDER, tagged Life, Love, mental health, Pain, poetry on June 13, 2024| 1 Comment »

This month a number of lovely students I know will walk a stage, be handed a diploma, have a tassel flipped and smile for the camera. Then they move on to ‘real’ life.

Thirty-seven years ago I was that student. Oh, how I would love to whisper some truths about real life to that eighteen year old! Though, to be honest, I am not sure that younger me would have listened.

Real life … what is ‘real’ life? What makes life ‘real’?

I know this much is true …

real life costs, hurts and has nothing to do with outward appearances.

real life is played out in the long, dark seasons.

real life happens when no one is looking.

Real life costs. It costs money, time and everything you thought were your assets. It often costs more than you actually have at your disposal. It can mean having to beg, borrow or steal to afford such a cost. The price of real life can make the costs of graduation or university tuition seem thrifty. Real life educates you on the lack of value of valuables,

and in the priceless value of health, relationships, purpose, breath.

Real life hurts. It can hurt physically, like when giving birth, or enduring treatments for a disease that can seem harder than the disease … or internally, emotionally when there is separation from loved ones … through distance (physical or relational), or death. Real life hurts can make your insides ache so that you cannot imagine the pain ever dissipating. Real life is when,

the pain you feel is nothing compared to the pain felt by a loved one.

Real life has nothing to do with outward appearances. The freshly cut and styled hair, the the manis and pedis, the elaborate gowns and trendy suits of graduation formals … these are merely temporary decor covering a very real soul. The only makeover for the soul is to live life authentically, truthfully, while acknowledging the handiwork of the Master …

the One true God whose fingerprint is on each soul.

As I look back thirty-seven years, I know now how very little I knew then. How very little of what the future would hold, but also how very little of what would be valuable in life. And now, as I look ahead, the only thing I know is that it will cost, I will learn, be stretched, feel pain and joy.

And may I long more each day to meet my God, one day (no hurrying that, though). In Him is all that is really real.

“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse …

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

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A Soft and Gentle Rain

Posted in WONDER, tagged blog, Life, nature, poetry, rain on June 5, 2024| 1 Comment »

Where I live, we have been living in the season of SPWINTER. The calendar indicates that it is spring, but the weather isn’t always sunny and flowery and gentle and springy.

Sometimes in May or June, the weather is dreadful. There’s thunderstorms and lightning and hail and the weather gets colder, not warmer and it’s just nasty and unappealing and ruins your plans and kind of break your heart.

And then

you walk out of your door one day and the rain is falling (again), but this rain that is falling …

it’s the soft gentle type of rain.

It’s this soft, gentle rain that you can see when you’re looking ahead of yourself, but it’s so soft and so gentle that if you took a photo there would be no visual indication that it is raining.

As I was driving to work recently this soft and gentle rain was falling, and a smile

a big, directly from the deepest part within me smile

grew across my face.

(and it is a rare thing for me to smile when it is raining, to say nothing of smiling because it is raining).

And if felt like a balm, a soothing ointment for my dreary, rain-soaked state of mind.

And I immediately whispered thanks for this reprieve. Not a reprieve from the rain and clouds and dreary-all-around, but a reprieve from the harshness of the elements, an opportunity to be reminded that hope, that peace, can also exist in the midst of the storm.

And so, in life

things don’t go as we expect, or wish, or hope that they would.

and we get discouraged, disappointed and glum.

we feel we are missing out on what should be our day, week, out life.

But then,

in the midst of the dank, dark storms,

comes this gentle rain.

Rain that slows your heartbeat.

Rain that nurtures wonder.

Rain that reminds you that real peace is not an absence of storms, but peace in the midst of them.

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Evil Thoughts

Posted in WONDER, tagged #evilthoughts, #wonder, Life, Me on June 19, 2020| 3 Comments »

Do you ever have … evil thoughts?

Well, maybe not really ‘evil’, just … thoughts that, if you carried them out, would be so against your nature, and so vile and nasty to the recipient of your actions or words.

I am mature enough to tell you that I am guilty of having … evil thoughts.

This revelation began w a y back into my childhood, when I was old enough to know better than to do what the ‘little voices’ (oh man, now I am revealing that I hear little voices … now it’s in print, and could be used against me … to the ‘home’ they will send me) in my head were telling me to do … with my brother (I don’t remember which one, but that doesn’t really matter … I’m sure I had this thought about both, at one point or another). I was carrying him, and, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there is this evil thought in my head … Carole, throw him down on the floor … Yikes! Now, depending on what he had done recently to my Barbie dolls, I might have contemplated that a bit longer than I should, but, let me assure you that I did not do it … but I thought about it.

Then, the other day, I was out walking my beast. We walked near our home for a change, along the road, past other more rural properties. My beast, at the beginning of the walk, had a poo (and, yes, I did have a poo bag) … now this is strange, because she normally ‘goes number two’ at the end of our walk. So, I had to carry the full poo bag on our walk. Then, out of nowhere, there is this evil thought in my head … Carole, put the full poo bag in one of the mailboxes …. Yikes! We passed m a n y mailboxes on our walk, and the temptation was great! (and just to let you know, especially if you live near me, I did not put the poo bag in any mailboxes … just sayin’)

Not long ago (okay, yesterday) I was at a movie with my girls. And when I returned to the theater I almost went to sit with the wrong person (it was a very dark theater). Then, out of nowhere, there is this evil thought in my head … Carole, just sit beside him anyway, and eat his popcorn … Yikes! Okay, that one did make me giggle (and my daughters heard me, so they could direct me where to sit … and to ‘be quiet, mom, you are sooooo immature … imagine if I had told them why I was giggling)!

Then, there’s the parking lot … any parking lot. And the lot is jam packed, and I cannot find a spot. Then, just as one comes available, someone else gets it before me, and I have this thought … heck, just play the video!

And, NO, I am not guilty of actually doing this … yet (I do fear that the onslaught of … getting older, might make me susceptible to actually fulfilling what, lets face it ALL of us have had evil thoughts about doing).

Not long ago, my hubby had declared his 50+ pound weight loss, in our church, to much praise and congratulations (I’m so proud of him, too). After the church service, someone (whose identity God has been gracious to wipe from my memory), came up to me and said, ‘I see you’ve been finding all the weight that your hubby has lost’. And out of nowhere an evil repertoire of words came to mind, but … yikes … Gods omnipotence struck my vocal cords, and I was unable to respond (and, I have to say, I am a bit bitter about that one!).

Then there is that email … you know the one. It talks about fun things to do, to other people, while shopping (so many ‘evil thoughts’ in that one email)? Like slipping boxes of condoms into unsuspecting shoppers carts, hiding in a clothing rack and, when someone is looking, yell out ‘pick me’, or setting all of the Tickle Me Elmo’s off, then scooting out of the aisle, just as hubby walks into the aisle … oh wait, I actually did do that one … but not the condom one … yet 🙂

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Laverne, the Theologian

Posted in GOD, life, WONDER, tagged Go Into All The World, Laverne, Life, Risk, Safe, Sanctuary, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Theologian, You Can't Stay Cooped Up Here Forever on August 1, 2019| 2 Comments »

One of my favorite theologian’s name is Laverne.

She is female, I think. I do not know her age. I presume her to be Catholic. She is wise, and funny, and sarcastic (oh, how I do love sarcasm). She is not human. She is not even alive. She, my favorite theologian, is Laverne, one of the three gargoyles from the Disney movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (and the only one whose voice comes from a female).

Some of the things that she taught me are :

“… take it from an old spectator. Life’s not a spectator sport. If watchin’ is all you’re gonna do, then you’re gonna watch your life go by without ya.”

“these (physical) chains aren’t what’s holding you back”

“We just thought maybe you were made of somethin’ stronger.”

“Fly, my pretties! Fly, fly!”

But my favorite teaching from Laverne the theologian was, “nobody wants to stay cooped up here forever.” She says this to the bell ringer, Quasimodo, who had spent his life being ‘safe’ in his cathedral tower. Inside the walls of the church he had all he needed. He had friends (the gargoyles), he had food, and clothes, and … sanctuary. He was protected from the evils outside of the walls of Notre Dame.

But, was he living? Was he fulfilling his purpose?

It was not until Quasimodo left the sanctuary of his bell tower that he could taste and see what life among the living was like. It was in learning to risk, and love and lose that he learned that he had something to bring to the world, beyond the safety of his church walls.

For me, this lesson is one that I want to hold on to. I too enjoy the sanctuary of my church. But, it is in my leaving this place of sanctuary, that I bring what I have, in Christ, to the world. If I stay ‘cooped up (at church) here forever’ I then am not allowing God to use me, as his vessel through which he might speak to those yet to choose life with him.

When we, who profess the Christian faith, surround ourselves with only those who share our belief system, we have forgotten the words of Jesus:

“And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.” Mark 16:15

This is the great commission, this is our commissioning, from Jesus, to take his word, his light into the world … it is why we are here, our purpose.

So, I challenge those of you (and me) who find sanctuary in the walls of your cathedral, we can’t stay cooped up there forever.

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“Dead People’s Goals”

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #deadpeoplesgoals, #discomfort, #livereal, #meaningfullife, #susandavid, Life on February 6, 2018| Leave a Comment »

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness
It took me years to understand that, this too, was a gift”
Mary Oliver

box

I do not always live it, perfectly, but I do believe that we should look for the positive in all situations … even the dark ones.

That said, I also believe in living authentically, in being really real.

Last week I discovered psychologist, Susan David through a TED talk video. Through listening to her words, my brow furrowed … not in disagreement, but in wonder.

“When we push aside normal emotions
to embrace false positivity
we lose our capacity to develop skills
to deal with the world as it is
not as we wish it to be.”

As I listened to her words two, divergent, experiences came to mind.

One experience was when people would say, “you are always smiling,” with great delight in my (obviously) happy condition.

Another was a lady who would see me and say, “you’re smiling, but I think there is something else going on, on the inside.”

On the one hand I was disappointed that I was not truly being seen, and on the other I was disappointed that I was being seen clearly.

Though I will continue to smile through the tough stuff, it is imperative that we have people in our lives who allow us to drop our false positivity fronts. People who love us and want the reality of who we are … the good, the bad and the ugly. We all need people in our lives who give us the freedom and space to laugh our belly laughs, and weep our tears.

What I bet is that when we are living the dark and twisties in our lives, your smiling front meets my smiling front, and we are both feel alone. Both feeling that there is no one to be really real with. No one who understands disappointment, hurt or fears. No one to share the load, no one wipe our tears.

And so we smile brighter, so that we can hide our stress and disappointments and sorrows, creating a sort of hopeful utopia of our mind, rather than really living a real life … with all of the good and bad, struggle and sweetness.

Ms. David continues:

“I have had hundreds of people tell me what they don’t want to feel.
They say things like,
“I don’t want to try, because I don’t want to feel disappointed”
Or, “I just want this feeling to go away”.

“I understand, (I say to them) but you have dead people’s goals …

Tough emotions are part of our contract with life
you don’t get to have a meaningful career
or raise a family
or leave the world a better place
without stress and discomfort.

Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”

If discomfort is, truly, the price of admission to a meaningful life,
and if we all desire a meaningful life (and we do),
we all need to embrace the reality that stress and discomfort are part of the package,

and it is worth it, because it is the only life we get to live, and to really live is to live authentically, acknowledging that it isn’t always easy, or pretty or happy, or good.

No more “dead people’s goals” of perfection and happy,
Lets just live this real life, with grace.
Giving others, and ourselves, the space to be real.

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Getting a HANDle on Aging-Repost

Posted in life, Love, The Hubby, The Kids, WONDER, tagged Aging, Beauty, hands, laugh lines, Life, lotions, Love, rough skin, touch, Wrinkles on July 28, 2017| 3 Comments »

I just realized that I hadn’t posted yesterday!
I have been hard at work (avoiding) preparing a message for this weekend (on aging!!).
So, in lieu of a belated new post, here is my contribution, from over five years ago.
Now to get a handle on this message …

Although I am only thirty-nine (with four years experience) I am becoming more acquainted with aging, and it’s changes each and every day.

There are some changes that come with ‘time passing on’ (this is hubby’s way of referring to aging) that I quite like.

I love the lines that are forming just outside of the corners of my mouth, and my eyes, because they are evidence to smiles and laughs. I may not remember every individual event that caused my face to smile, but the lines will never hide that joy has filled my days.

I love that I have been plucking my eyebrows for so many years that the hairs almost never re-grow anymore.

I love that I do not have to concern myself with pimples, other than the odd one or two.

I love that, because my hair is … silvering … I have a natural excuse to become an even more blond, and I now have a number(s) to identify and define my hair color 😉

There are also some changes that have occurred that I do not favor so much.

I do not like that my knees have decided I need to pay more attention to them, and they attain my attention in the most uncomfortable of ways.

I do not like that some foods that I ingest want to burn themselves into my memory (or at least into my esophagus).

I definitely do not like the anticipation of body parts migrating in a southerly direction.

But, I especially do not like that the appearance of my hands is changing.

The famous, all-knowing ‘they’ say that the way to most accurately guess the age of woman, you need to only to glance at her neck or her hands.

As each year passes, I have noticed subtle changes happening in my hands, that I am not so happy about. The lines in them are deepening. They need constant re-hydration from rich lotions. I seem to have lost the ability to grown my fingernails to even the slightest length, without their splintering. There seems to be more skin, as it is losing it’s youthful elasticity. They sometimes even ache … but it is their appearance that is more disheartening to me.

It is a frequent occurrence that I glance at my hands, and have no idea whose hands they are. They surely cannot be mine, because mine do not look so … so … aged. Then I realize they move when and where I will them, and so they truly are my own.

Maybe the changes in them bother me, because my hands were the body part(s) that I actually liked about myself. Maybe I thought I would be immune to the normal, natural results of ‘time moving on.’

All that said, maybe the wrinkles, the lines, the shorter nails and the loosening skin are all characteristics of hands that have been held by generations before me, that have held on to the children I gave birth to, that have made meals for those I love, that have held the hands of people readying for eternity, that have written or typed words of encouragement, that have touched the shoulder of one carrying the weight of the world, that have folded in an act of pray, that have been kissed by the man of my life, that will one day be taken by my Redeemer as He welcomes me into eternity.

Maybe they are like the laugh lines I so adore on my face. Maybe they are the lines of hands that have loved, and been loved in return.

So, I’ll keep slathering rich lotions onto them, so that, although they will be marked by the lines of time, they will still be welcoming to the touch of those who need a hand.

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Death Makes Me Think About Living

Posted in WONDER, tagged #deathmakesmethinkaboutliving, #lastdaysoflife, Death, dying, Life, living on March 2, 2015| 2 Comments »

It’s been a week filled with talk of death, confirmed and pending.

Our kids often say their friends find their relaxed, nonchalant manner of speaking of death odd. I remember one day, years ago, when one of our kids had a friend over. At dinner time I announced that dinner that night would be funeral food, and the eyes of our visitor popped from her head. What followed was a discussion of how sometimes, when there is food left over from a funeral or memorial reception, it gets shared with those who were involved in the service. As hubby is a pastor, who officiates many such services, he sometimes gets offered a plate of the left overs. This is not a normal event for the typical household.

Our kids are often privy to the technical details of funeral planning, of the humanity and humor of funeral directors. They hear of their dad’s visits with those who are dying, and of the stages leading up to the final earthly breath a soul makes. They have heard him speak, eyes heavy, voice unsteady, of having visited so one for the final time, knowing that he will not see them again until reaching that Fovererland of eternity. This job of pastor is as much about saying goodbye as saying welcome.

I like that our kids are growing up in an environment where they see and know that death is part of life. That grieving and tears are okay. That loss touches everyone. That no man or woman is an island, and death touches many.

I also like the frequent reminders that death is inevitable, because death, more than anything else, reminds me to live.

Last week, with each Facebook update, my heart paused, my lungs emptied of their air, my eyes filled, my throat swelled. Death is around the corner for a woman, and cancer is the vehicle that is driving her there.

A young mom, who I’ve only met a couple of times, yet she has been on my prayer list off and on for the past eight to ten years that she has battled this disease. She, her husband and three (nearing, and into adolescence) children have been give the news that their wife and mom only has days, maybe short weeks to share a smile, a laugh, share the embrace that says security and unconditional love.

When I read that update, the one that spoke of a time limit for this life, I sighed, heavy.

Then I thought to myself, how would I live my life, today, if I knew it was one of my last on Earth? Particularly, how would I live today, as a mom?

I’ve decided not to share how I would live, but I am challenging each of us to ask this question of ourselves. I am challenging each of us to live, today, as if we knew it to be one of our last.

I also ask you to please pray for this woman, and her family as they all walk her, together, to heaven’s gate.

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AWK-ward

Posted in WONDER, tagged #2corinthians4, #awkward, #cannonbeach, #toughtimes, Adolescence, Future, Life on September 9, 2014| 2 Comments »

As I sat in the school library, my attention was grabbed by a group of grade eight middle school students, working together on a group project.

It was one young man, in particular, who caught my gaze.

He was awkward … in every way possible.

His glasses kept slipping down his nose.

His round face, and body indicated that his upward growth had not yet stretched him vertically.

His clothes looked like ones a mom would buy (I’ve been that mom) without asking his opinion (though, to be fair to mom, maybe he didn’t really care what he was wearing).

He slouched in his chair, feet dangling inches from the carpeted floor.

Although his appearance was awkward (and I’ll bet his voice cracked, as well) it was the conversation with the girls in his group that captivated my attention.

The girls, oozing that early maturation that adolescent girls benefit from, were obviously speaking a language that he had yet to learn. They were talking quickly with their lips, as well as with their demonstrative hands. They giggled, they planned, they organized the role of the awkward boy in their project. The other boy in the group had an athletic build, and he smiled and laughed with the girls, causing the girls to hang on his every word. He was not awkward but amazing!

The young man looked like a fish out of water, totally and completely out of his element, his comfort zone, getting deep into uncharted waters.

And the girls giggled.

I have talked with this awkward young man. He is bright, makes wise choices, has compassion on others, is a great student … academically and behaviorally, he has a twinkle in his eye that makes one feel safe, heard, valued.

Here is what those giggling girls need to know:

that plain caterpillar will emerge from his adolescent cocoon a beautiful, graceful butterfly.

Now he might still not fully understand the language of females, and he may never have the buff body of an athlete, but the wise choices he makes, the use and development of the brain in his head, and his compassionate heart will grow him into a man of honor and success.

Right now, those girls are oblivious to this … right now he is oblivious to this.

Watching this young man in his group reminded me of 2 Corinthians 4:18

“So we fix out eyes
not on what is seen,
but on what is unseen
since what is seen is temporary
but what is unseen is eternal.”

So often, in the midst of the difficult, the ugly, the painful or the … awkward, we simply cannot ever imagine life being different or better. Our focus is completely on the mire of today. But God can see our future … all of it.

He knows where we are heading, and He plans to go there with us.

Just like me watching the scene in the library, believing that this young mans future looks so much brighter than his present, God looks at us in our awkward life situations and He knows what is to come for our lives, for our eternity.

Today is just a step in our life, lets keep our gaze on the unseen, who sees all.

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Preferred Fruit

Posted in GOD, life, WONDER, tagged #fruitofthespirit, #ilovefruit, #knownbyourfruit, #preferredfruit, #producefruit, #thevine, Life on August 18, 2014| 2 Comments »

I love almost all fruits that I have ever tasted.

I love the sweetness

the juice they produce

and the way I feel after eating fruit.

Earlier today I was thinking about fruit too, but a different kind of fruit.

The fruit I was thinking about was the kind that is not edible, but it can be palatable. It is not something you can pick off a branch and hold in your hand, but when it is there it is all that you can see, and smell. It is not something that provides a taste of sweetness, but it’s absence can leave a sour taste in ones mouth. It is the fruit that comes from a living, nourished, well-watered life rooted in the Creator.

By no means am I indicating that I am a living example of that fruit, but it is a goal that I have for my life. I know how sweet my life is when I am connected to the branches of the Creator. I know of the amazing things that can be produced, that can happen, when I am producing the fruit I was intended to produce. I know how wonderful I feel, how purpose-led my days are when I am taking in the aroma, the energy of the God who lives.

When my life is rooted in the soil of the Creator

I am healthy

I am growing

I am sweet (desirable to be with) for those around me.

When I look at trees in an orchard, I cannot tell what trees they are. But, when I look at the fruit, hanging off their branches, it is easy to identify what types of trees they are. It is by their fruit that I know them.

In the same way, for many people, the only way they know who the Creator is, is by His creation. And His most spectacular creation is that of humankind. We are his creation, and how we live our daily lives is the fruit of His creation. It is through the fruit of our lives that others can see where we are rooted, what is feeding us, who makes us grow, and whether or not we are sweet (desirable to be with).

Some days (weeks, months … years) I am pretty sour, or poorly rooted, or malnourished, or withered. And it is never because of the Creator … but is always because I have not responded well to the pruning (struggles), or I spent too long focusing on receiving the watering (selfishness), or the light (the externals), or I am overly concerned about growing farther away from my roots (independence). If only I would focus on where I am planted, and recognize that it is only through the purposes of my Creator that I can thrive where I am, and produce the sweetest of His fruits.

What is produced in my life, is only a reflection of what I am attached to, and of who is granting me life. And this is only possible as I relinquish control, and allow the nature of my Creator God to produce the fruit in my life. And that is good fruit … always in season.

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