Tag Archives: Soli Deo Gloria Sisterhood

Beach: Soul Care Toolkit #3

11 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Communities, scripture, Soul Care

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Let’s go to the beach, get the sand through our feet. Bring on the wonder, bring on the song, I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long. — Sarah McLachlan, Bring on the Wonder

There is a passage of scripture which troubles me.

Let me rephrase that. There are many passages of scripture which trouble me; but there is one which has me especially puzzled at the moment, and it is this:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:1-4, ESV.

Now, I am looking forward to the coming of the new heaven and new earth. God dwelling with man? Yes! Can’t wait for that. No more tears, mourning or pain? Bring it on. That’s what we’ve all been longing for, right?

My issue is with this description at the end of the first verse:

 . . . and the sea was no more.

No sea = no beach.

And few things in this life restore my soul like a day at the beach.

New England experienced its first heat wave of the season at the end of May, one which extended into the early days of June. And for some reason, my air conditioning only seems to conk out on me in the middle of a heat wave. After several steamy, sultry days I found myself home alone on a Saturday morning, having finished all my chores. So I did what folks have done for generations to seek relief from the heat; I headed for open water and cooler temperatures.

And at my first glimpse of blue extending to the horizon, and the first taste of salt air on my tongue, I experienced the physical sensation of rest. I wonder if it’s possible actually to feel a drop in one’s blood pressure, because I certainly seemed to.

Perhaps I should share my discovery with cardiologists.

I sat on the beach, soaked up the sun, and ran sand through my toes. I watched seagulls circle above picnic baskets and blankets, waiting to swoop down and commit crimes of opportunity. Despite temperatures which had scarcely risen to sixty degrees I dove beneath the water in the Long Island Sound, anxious to feel salt in my hair and taste it on my lips.

My eyes surveyed fellow beach goers. Young boys using sand buckets as bases organized a game of ball, calling out chants they had perhaps picked up in Little League, They invited others who passed by to join them and, not until after assigning positions on their field did they ask, “Hey! What’s your name anyway?”

I reveled in their playfulness. I prayed these boys, who would soon be men, wouldn’t grow up and out of it too quickly.

I saw packs of teens moving across the beach, almost as a single unit. Several within the group formed couples, holding hands and clinging perhaps to the first fruits of a summer romance. Others flirted and gazed longingly in the direction of another. I wondered how many of these were walking through the beginning days of the last summer of their friendship, before being scattered by college and life and responsibility.

I saw families of all shapes and size and colors; I heard laughter and voices in tongues not my own. I witnessed a young boy capture a crab in his net, show it to an elderly man who stopped to snap a picture, and then release it back into the surf. All around me, people were drinking in the delight of a simple day at the beach.

And I thought about Jesus, ministering to his disciples by preparing breakfast over the coals for them.

On the beach.

So why, in the new heaven and new earth, would there be no more sea? No more beach?

I am no theologian, nor son of a theologian, but I am certainly capable of googling some biblical commentary. I looked to voices I trusted to help me try to make sense of this passage. Some insisted on it being understood quite literally. No sea means, no sea. Period.

Ix-nay on the each-bay.

Others interpreted the passage more metaphorically, acknowledging that the words are John’s description of his vision. They pointed toward other references throughout scripture where the imagery of the sea suggests a place of violence and judgment, something which separates people from one another, and from which, one day, the dead will be reclaimed.

I honestly can’t say for sure whether or not there will be beaches in heaven. But if not, I am certain what will be there can only be better—a thing I can scarcely imagine. There, my soul will be healed and all will be well.

And perhaps Jesus will meet me there. And we’ll have breakfast.

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Linking with Jen and the sisterhood, and emily @ imperfect prose:


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Consider the Lilacs: Soul Care Toolkit #2

20 Monday May 2013

Posted by in beauty, Communities, Soul Care

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If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Didn’t it seem like, when we were kids, lilacs lasted all summer long?” my sister once asked me.

I had to agree. Evidently, as a child, I was oblivious to things like the passing of time and the life cycles of flowering plants. When I think about my childhood home, I remember winter ending, sunshine returning, and lilacs blooming in my mother’s yard. Summer loomed long before me, and childhood was pleasant.

One early June, the summer before my husband and I were married, I planned to cut a bouquet of lilacs for my apartment before he came for a visit. Each time I walked past the bank of bushes which lined the parking lot at the rear of my building, I drank deeply of their fragrance and color. When I went out scissors in hand to clip a few blossoms to bring indoors, I was stunned to find most of the flowers had turned brown and their lovely aroma had faded. Until that day, I had not realized how short was the season for enjoying lilacs.

Since writing my post about the color yellow, I’ve been thinking about what else I might add to my soul care toolkit. I definitely need to pack some lilacs in there.

“Consider the lilies,” Christ told his followers when they were tempted to doubt the Father’s goodness or question His provision for them. He pointed them to the stuff of this creation which was spoken into existence by the word of God and bears witness to the same.

Each spring I don’t just wait for lilacs to bloom, I will for them to return. As soon as I seen signs of life in flowering trees and plants, I begin examining my lilac bushes. I squint my eyes in search of the slightest hint of lavender, the tiniest cluster of a flower bud beginning to form. I know the lilacs’ signature scent won’t return until the flowers begin to open, so I search out the first floweret which unfurls and drink its aroma deep into my lungs.

I don’t just enjoy lilacs; I bury my face in and inhale them.

Because I know these flowers will be with me for such a short time, perhaps two weeks at best. I don’t take them for granted. They are a gift to me each spring, a lovely and gracious one from the hand of my Father. They tell me something of His delight in giving me good things. And they remind me of something important about Him.

God cares about things like beauty and fragrance.

Within the myriad of detailed instruction God gave his people about building His tabernacle, He told them to build an altar of incense. And the fragrant smoke which ascended from the altar, reaching toward heaven and representing the prayers of God’s people, pleased Him.

And when I am tempted to doubt my Father’s goodness or question His provision for me the scent of lilac wafting through a spring breeze feels a little like a love letter from Him. He reminds me that the cry of my heart, whether in joy or in pain, arises like a sweet-smelling aroma to Him. When I take time to sit beneath my lilac bushes and allow myself to be enveloped by their fragrance, I am reminded that God cares about the cries of my heart. And He delights to give good gifts to his children.

I have told my children that, when I die, I intend to do it in May. Not necessarily this May, mind you, should the Lord tarry and continue to give me strength. “Fill my casket with lilacs,” I’ve told them, “so I’ll be able to drink in their fragrance forever.”

Already the lilacs in my neighborhood have begun to fade and turn brown, and this grieves me. I know I will wait almost another full year before they return and make my heart glad. I long for a world where lilacs bloom eternally, just as they did in childhood memory.

I have already commissioned my rock-star diva girlfriend to sing at my funeral which, I tell her as a cancer survivor, is how I know she is going to outlive me. And don’t even try to pick apart my logic here; just go with it.

The song I have asked her to sing is There is a Land of Pure Delight, an old hymn written by Isaac Watts and recorded by Red Mountain Church. The lyrics, in part, are these:

There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign,
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,
And never withering flowers:
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heav’nly land from ours.

Granted, Isaac Watts’ words don’t carry the weight and authority of scripture. Perhaps lilacs won’t bloom eternally in heaven. But maybe they will. And, if so, each time I bury my face in a bunch of them, and inhale them deep into my lungs, I am feeding my soul a foretaste of heaven.

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Joining Laura, Michelle, and Jen in these communities:


 

Yellow

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in beauty, books, Communities, creation, scripture, Soul Care

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Look at the stars; look how they shine for you, and everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow. – Yellow, Coldplay

If there were such a thing as a soul-care toolkit, and I was to begin assembling one, one of the first items I would pack into mine would be the color yellow.

When I married the beloved Swede nearly thirty years ago, I asked my bridesmaids to wear yellow. His groomsmen all wore brown tuxes, but that’s a conversation for another day. In our defense, it was the early eighties when many of us made unfortunate fashion choices.

A year ago when I was discussing blog redesign ideas with a friend, I told him my site needed to have yellow in it, but I didn’t know why. Last week a friend invited me to meet her for lunch. Afterward she asked if I wanted to stop by her house to see her daffodils. There were nine hundred and fifty-two of them, she told me. She’d counted.

As we stood together, surrounded by a sea of spring flowers, I told her I remembered reading somewhere that, during seasons when he was experiencing relief from the mental illness which tormented him, Van Gogh tended to use more yellow in his paintings. When I got home, I did a little online sleuthing to see if I could find any confirmation for my story. I didn’t.

Some sources suggested certain Van Gogh’s vision was affected by certain medications he took to treat his physical and mental illness, and these caused him to see yellow or yellow spots. Some in the art world speculate that Van Gogh merely painted what he saw. I did find, however, this quote from a letter written to his brother in 1888:

Just now, we have a strong glorious heat, with no wind, just what I want. There is a sun, a light that for the want of a better world I can call only yellow, pale sulphur yellow, pale golden citron. How lovely yellow is!

The world outside my window is currently aflame with yellow. Forsythia is in full bloom, and even the pesky dandelion–cursed by homeowners who labor to eradicate it–turns it spiky yellow petals toward the sun. Perhaps even the miseries of this life are tinted yellow to bear witness to some hidden beauty.

While scripture reminds me the grass withers and flowers fade, and only the word of the Lord endures forever, it also points me toward the one who leads me beside still waters to restore my soul (Psalm 23:2). He visits the earth and waters it; he crowns the year with his goodness, and he causes little hills to rejoice on every side. (Psalm 65:9-11)

And he is the one who graces the world with the color yellow.

Another friend said to me recently that, as years go by, she finds herself increasingly surprised by the return of spring. And I knew just what she meant. Although God’s word tells me he has set the sun in its circuit (Psalm 19:4-6) and ordered the moon to mark out the seasons, (Psalm 104:19) my soul grows weary throughout the cold, dark days of winter.  Though spring has returned faithfully each year of my life thus far, sometimes I am tempted to wonder, “What if this year it doesn’t?”

When yellow returns it speaks to me of hope, it whispers to me of resurrection. It restores my soul.

I see yellow and I am reminded that out of darkness light will dawn once again; mourning will make way for joy. Out of death, life will rise. It has before, it will again.

And the one who rose from the dead is the very same one who wove this pattern into all of creation. He is the one who numbers the stars and calls each of them by name. (Psalm 147:4) He knows mine.

And he gives me the gift of yellow.

How about you? If you were packing a soul-care kit, what would yours contain? And what’s your favorite color? Why?

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Joining the writers at Living the Story @ BibleDude who, throughout the month of April, have been celebrating our ability to Rise and grasp the wonder of Christ as we walk out Eastertide. Today, Margaret Feinberg shares how we nurture awe and live wonderstruck in the every day.

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Playing With Paperwork

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Communities, family, memoir

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Saturday was going to be a writing day. But for the baby shower I missed because I wrote the wrong date on my calendar, I had no commitments. A full day of uninterrupted hours stretched before me.

And I wrote not a single syllable.

I sat down at my desk, logged onto my computer to take care of some online banking, and quickly became distracted by the pile of file folders next to me and on the floor. As one who wears the label organized with no small measure of pride, I find piles of clutter mess with my psyche in profoundly disturbing ways. I blame the piles for the shower date mix-up.

In order to make space for my folders, I had to weed through many which had resided in the deep file drawer since my daughter had used the desk as a high school student. I unearthed homeschool records, transcripts, and letters of recommendation; copies of applications for colleges and scholarships, and several years’ worth of support letters from short-term mission projects in which both of my children had participated. I pitched catalogs from which I had ordered school uniforms for my son. I shredded outdated copies of FAFSA forms

As I sorted piles of paperwork representing years of my children’s histories, I was completely unprepared for the effect my little archaeological dig would have on my heart.

I found a copy of the speech my daughter had written in her seventeen-year old voice, one she had intended to deliver at her graduation party though she never did. She had composed words of appreciation for teachers and mentors, and pastors and friends, who had walked with her throughout her childhood and taught her about music and life and faith.

I uncovered the letter she had received from the admissions office of the college she attended, the one notifying her of her acceptance. I had forgotten how personalized the letter was, the admissions officer having taken care to quote excerpts from recommendations written on her behalf. I pictured myself holding the envelope while sitting in the parking lot of a bus station as I waited in her little silver Subaru for her to return from a weekend trip. I recalled the mix of emotions I felt as she opened the letter— both pride in her acceptance and disappointment that my first choice of colleges was not also hers. Her decisions about college and life were beginning to diverge from mine, yet they turned out to be okay and they turned out to be good.

Programs from Baccalaureate services from both high school and college were tucked away in files next to one another. Graduation announcements, napkins, confetti, and other memorabilia tumbled out of another folder. I found a picture of my daughter, dressed in her high school cap and gown, posing in front of the Snow Fountain Weeping Cherry tree in my front yard.

As each folder and every paper passed through my fingers, I remembered how important each had seemed at the time. Each signified major turning points; each represented years of doubts, fears, questions, and prayer. Everything which had once seemed monumental had, over time, eased into its place of proper proportion. I held onto a few of the treasures I unearthed, choosing several to pass along to my kids, but not many.

As I look out the window from where I sit here at my writing desk, I can see the Snow Fountain tree about to reach full flower. Each year I look forward to the beauty of its blossoms; each year its blooming is bittersweet. No sooner do its flowers fully extend than they begin to fade away and fall to the ground. Six seasons of blooms have passed since my daughter posed in front of this tree in her cap and gown.

Time goes by and seasons pass. I filter once important papers through my hands. Former milestones yield their way to greater glories. And all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.*

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*From yesterday’s call to worship. Joining Michelle, Laura, and Jen and the sisterhood.


You Can’t Judge a Girl by Her Jelly Bellies

08 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Communities

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It all began with a couple of innocent questions.  Shortly before Easter, when I may or may not have accidentally dipped into my holiday candy stash, I asked on Facebook:

What’s your favorite Jelly Belly flavor? Least favorite? Go.

I learned that some of my friends held strong opinions about gourmet jellybean flavors. Some of their comments surprised me. Both buttered popcorn and black licorice flavors seemed to evoke passionate responses, either for or against. People tended to prefer either fruity flavors or spicy ones, and they didn’t appreciate being surprised when what they thought was a red cherry jellybean turned out to be hot cinnamon one. Or vice-versa. Friends I thought I knew well and with whom I have much in common expressed preferences which were the complete opposite of mine.

You just never know about some folks.

Me? I’m a buttered popcorn girl. All the way.

At a women’s retreat I attended a few years ago the speaker held up a picture of a woman and asked participants to describe what they thought they could tell about her. Based on clues in the photo, some offered guesses about the woman’s age, ethnicity, income level and professional status. Someone suggested perhaps she worked in a city. Another commented on her appearance of health and physical fitness.

The speaker invited us to look more closely and began to ask deeper questions:

Could we tell anything about this woman’s personal hopes, dreams, fears, or failings?

What did we know about the status of her relationships? Was her heart breaking over someone dear to her?

Was she suffering from addiction or abuse?

What was the result of her last mammogram?

What does she most need to hear right now?

“Often the least important details about a person,” the speaker said, “are the ones which are most evident.”

In a recent sermon from the Gospel of John, a visiting pastor commented on the phrase with which the author most often identified himself. Describing himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, John made evident what he considered to be the single most important detail about himself.

Not how much he loved Jesus.

Not what he did for Jesus.

Not how much he knew about Jesus.

Nothing about who he was, or what he did, nothing else in John’s life compared to his overwhelming sense of the depth of Christ’s love for him.

I reveal quite a bit about myself, both online and among my friends. Much of it is trivial, bordering perhaps on the inappropriate. It is evident from my words and photos that I am tall and have a head full of gray hair. I blather on about my handsome husband, my terrific kids, and my outstanding grandson. Though I’m no poet, I can become downright lyrical about my love for the beach, shenanigans, and all things Christmas.

And, it’s no secret I have little self-control when there’s a stash of Easter candy in the house.

But I wonder if someone were to describe me based on what I’ve revealed about myself, would anyone possibly come up with: She knew she was deeply loved by Jesus?

I sort of doubt it. And that troubles me. Because the only way for me to communicate a profound sense of knowing I am the one whom Jesus loves, I’d have to live as though I believed it were true.

How about you? What do you think others would choose as the most important detail to use in describing you? Would it be: He/she is the one whom Jesus loves?

Of course, you’re free to share your favorite Jelly Belly flavor in the comments as well.

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Joining Michelle DeRusha for Hear It, Use It and Jen and the Sisterhood @ Finding Heaven:


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