unwrapped - lifting my hands, my heart to Love

People don't give you gifts to obligate you to them; they give them to let you know how much they love you. They don't expect the thank you - they just want to know you appreciate their love.

Because giving makes them as vulnerable as receiving makes me.

This was the conversation that started me down a different road a few days ago. What he was saying, what I got out of what he said. This was the conversation that made me think about God, about my response to Him and His gifts, about how hesitant I am even to thank Him, lest He notice how much I like something and take it away from me.


Thanks that used to flow like gushing water no longer pours from my heart, but pools silent as I internalize my excitement over special things. I say everything but how much I love something, someone, Someone.

It's going to have to overflow sometime. I wonder if it does, won't I drown in it?

Even in Between - One Thousand Gifts

I honestly don't know when you'll get this, he wrote three years ago, while we were waiting for Piper, when he was leaving for another conference, when we couldn't spend time together that we wanted to spend.

This afternoon. Or tomorrow. Or maybe next week...

He gave it to me yesterday, sealing the envelope that had been waiting three years for his kiss, presenting it to me in the midst of our hardest, busiest, most telling season yet.

He gave it now, two babies into our life with children, with stress at home and at work, with a move coming up next weekend and the new house unfinished, with sickness cycling through and two houses to clean, with other responsibilities and financial concerns - there is no time for us.

There wasn't then, either.

He handed it to me; I thought I saw tears in his eyes.

This is our love, he said. Look at the date.

Three years ago, we knew it. Things haven't changed.

This is our love, for each other, for our little ones, for our families, for our God.

You see, time, to us, doesn't matter. We have so little time anyway...

So I am thankful for the time we have.

I cling to the precious moments together, embrace the gifts, sometimes cling too much to them, instead of to the Giver. But they are what I have of Him, or rather, what I see that I have from Him. Given in His love, they seem to be eternal, and my spirit responds outside of time, for one can always be grateful.

*101 - My sweet flower girl, who thinks all the flowers we bring home are for her. She loves to smell them, even if they have no fragrance at all.

*102 - Playtime and toddler stories made up

*103 - Hug requests

*104 - "I'm sorry" to soften my angry heart.

*105 - Trouble to make me laugh in spite of my horror

*106 - Deviled eggs made with daddy - the best we've had in a long time

*107 - Words strung together in grown-up sentences

*108 - She dresses herself to go out and play

*109 - Toddler lilt telling her story in the third person: "Piper hungry"

*110 - Giggles, the high, squeaky, shrieky "can't believe how happy I am" kind

*111 - Making story time to spend and share three times in a busy week

*112 - Tiny fingers grasping mine

*113 - Baby conversations, such sweet, soft hellos

*114 - Smiles, just for Mama

*115 - Innocent eyes that watch mine on gray days, questioning, loving, inviting me in

*116 - Laughter in work for a family photo session

*117 - A little bit extra to help with our load

*118 - Sunlight and spring, warming the month, lifting my spirits

*119 - A little work finished on life-giving projects

*120 - Broken moments together

*121 - Caring in sickness

*122 - Long, steadying embraces

*123 - Together

*124 - Toddler "mooseick", sweet and loud

*125 - Lyrics that play in the heart, that hum past my lips

*126 - God who is more than my today

For all that I miss, there is much I am given.

...


This post also linked at Holy Experience, sharing with the Gratitude Community in listing my own One Thousand Gifts.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

When Barren is Beautiful

Thank you for this thorn embedded in my flesh;
I can feel the mystery, my spirit is made fresh.
You are sovereign still and forever wise;
I can see the miracle opening my eyes

To a proud heart so quick to judge
Laying down crosses and carrying grudges.
The veil has been torn -
And I thank you for this thorn

Thank you for this thorn, fellowship of pain
Teaching me to know you more, never to complain
Thank You for this love planted in my side,
Faithful patient miracle opening my eyes.

I never thought I'd say it without reservation,
But I am truly grateful for this piercing revelation
Of a proud heart so quick to judge,
Laying down crosses and carrying grudges -
The veil has been torn,
And I thank you for this thorn

And if You chose to take it, I will praise You
And thank You for the healing in Your name.
But if it must remain, I thank You for Your rod
Evidence of Father-love for a child of God.

I join You in the sorrow,
So much less than You have borne,
And I thank you, really I thank You...
Lord I thank You; I thank You for this thorn

- Twila Paris, This Thorn

I hever saw myself posting this song, or even echoing it from my heart until today when I found myself humming it, voicing it, singing it during a diaper change.

Yesterday's words were for me. I meant only to give voice to myself and my struggle, meant only to shovel out some of my personal winter to make room for some spring.

Today, writing from here, I am nearly wordless at the depth of the response. I look at your words poured out in yesterday's comment box, filling my email inbox - words of encouragement, affirmation, identification. Words and prayers and Scripture and hope to refresh me, to make me feel young again, to let me know that there is still life to be had, to reach for my heart with yours and wrap it up and send it heavenward.

I have said thank-you so often lately, I can't help but respond with grateful all over the place. I am still with amazement today.

Today has been a slow day, a quiet day, a sunny day with March winds in January bearing growing excitement for us. It has been a day for making room, for choosing trust, for having and holding and trying again.

His mercies are new every morning, I learned in my first round of depression, when every night I fell into bed feeling I'd failed, knowing I'd handed in my miracles. They are still new, every morning.

This is what His faithfulness is.

I can't begin to describe it for you. It is simply something I know.

Last time I walked this path, I wanted what I wanted - the assurance that I would not lose, the end of my pain for crying out loud. God Himself was not reward enough for me. I was alone because I chose my isolation from His grace.

I am not alone this time. I could not have written what I wrote without the new knowledge I have of His love for me.

When I wrote yesterday, I could not thank Him for this, but today I step gingerly into praise. I learned last time not to feel guilty for the good days.

Worship aches out in breath today, in not-so-studied bed-making and hair-doing and nursing and diaper-changing and in writing and in cooking, which I have done.

There are not words adequate for this grateful, for this sense that God cares - He really does.

I look outside, absorb the sun and the blue and the trees and the glory of the morning traveling into noon and into early evening. The smile comes deep, peace that barely curves my lips, peace that lightens my eyes.

He has borne my burdens; you have borne them with Him. He has enriched my soul; He has used your words to do it. He has given me a good day; He has given me Himself.

Should it stun me that I am not wasted after four days in the dark? Should I be so amazed that I am not destroyed?

I am.

And I am, quite frankly, humbled. It as if I am seeing the world through different eyes today. I keep blinking, trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure out what to do with this "enfolded" feeling, with this "surrounded" feeling - this safe that isn't even a feeling so much as it is a faith.

I don't understand why I should feel beautiful like this. Why I should feel cherished like this. Comforted like this. Quieted like this.

Who am I to deserve such treatment?

Slowly, I learn now to pray.

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Unwrapping This Hope

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

In Haiti, they mourn. In Darfur, they suffer. In Thailand, in China. In New York City. In our neighborhood. In our own homes. In our hearts. Sometimes, it seems the clouds can't lift. It seems there is nothing but this gray, these tears, this pain.

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.

In spring, expectation bursts forth, defiant buds pushing through wintered ground, daring to blossom, as if they have forgotten the heat of the summer, autumn's hazy sorrow, winter's killing chill. The sun rises after night, spreading glory over day. Joy comes in the morning.

Creation waits. We wait.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Creation captive, frustrated, waiting, groaning under the weight of God-hope. We who know, who have this inkling of His glory - we have encountered Christ, and we begin to realize redemption, reckon ourselves alive to God, stand fast in God-justified free.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

The earth shakes, trembling, shrieking, falling into itself and over itself, writhing in pain, knowing what we know deep - we are not what we are meant to be. The mother knows as she travails, when transition comes on strong, when she cries out for "God, God, help me, help me please!" and then her baby comes.

And so we wait, and ache, and try to hope.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

An unseen hope that comes by faith, that grows in every spring our hearts know, that doesn't wither in the winds of autumn or freeze in winter's chill. A certain hope that at the end of this labor, death must die, and God will birth His life again into us by His Son.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

I shy away from that pain, from memory. Cling to smaller joys, try to ignore the longing. But always, it is there, in the depth of my spirit, constantly groaning, whispering of glory not my own, of God-joy, of peace that passes understanding.

Oh wonderful groaning, wonderful God who intercedes in heart-language we can't speak!

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

The suffering,
the groaning,
the waiting,
the hope;

The God,
His plan,
His Son,
His intercession for us...

We will be what He meant us to be, and He will be glorified.

How big is this God of ours?

(A meditation on Romans 8:18-30.)

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My friend Emily at Chatting at the Sky hosts a weekly "noticing" party - giving us a chance to unwrap and share the little gifts (and the big ones!) God gives to us in the midst of our dailiness.

Do you have a gift to unwrap today? Stop on by and link up with Emily, and share in the (mostly) paperless unwrapping!






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Jesus for My Children

He makes my small hands look large with his tiny.

Sometimes he looks up at me when I'm doing something or saying something, and I look down and catch his wide-eyed wonder.

And he smiles. Just for me right now. Goofy smiles for giggling. Happy smiles for flying. "I want to stay up smiles" that come by night-light late when I'd much rather be sleeping than rocking. Smiles that make me feel so loved when he meets my eyes as if he is talking to me, sharing his little happy heart.

I think he likes me.

This amazes me.

Already he is growing. Already his skin is losing that new-baby softness. Already his weak is stronger, his eyes are brighter, his voice is louder.

My heart is planting dreams, hoping stories for my children, for our family, praying laughter and conversation and silliness and dancing and happy and together-growth. I picture my children talking to each other, saying one another's names.

Names that we chose for them...

I imagine Piper's first crush, Bredon's first ballgame, girls' night out, boys' time...

I think we should get a dog. A family needs a dog. That would really annoy our house cats. They would so deserve it.

How will I talk about Jesus with my children? I am only beginning to learn. If you ask Piper who made her, half the time her answer is "Mickey Mouse."

She is a silly.

We read to them before we go to bed. We go to bed at the same time right now, with Piper needing her normal and Bredon up late with evening colic.

I want them to know about God. To know how He makes me who I am, who I don't realize I am until I think about it.

I realize it takes courage to stand in Jesus and say "I am human; I am justified. I am dead to sin and alive to God now." I have been gaining that courage to live so free.

I feel so very young sometimes. So unready to be the mother that I am now.

I notice my hands as I hold my children.

They don't know how small I feel. They don't know that I am only me for them because of Jesus loving me.

I think sharing that love with them doesn't have to frighten me. It is just His bigger hand on my tiny.

Every day I pray for grace.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Considering Grace

Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

- Jn. 6:28-29

I consider what He does not demand, remembering words shared in nighttime with one who does not yet grasp this faith, and I am awed. Who am I that I should understand? What have I done that He should bestow such grace so freely upon me that I should do this work He ordained for me?

The listing comes easier today:

*51: Today, I know who I am in Him

*52: I am not afraid

*53: Rose-gold light and

*54: Autumn-Christmas leaves afire with glory

*55: Baby-growth in-womb waiting

*56: Quiet to rest for God-timing

*57: Sun when it was supposed to be cloudy

*58: Tears - not all are bad

*59: Snow to make a younger brother's dream come true

*60: A younger sister's horse-dream realized

*61: Onesies and stocking-stuffers come by mail

*62: Conversations and prayers with loved ones waiting

*63: Community who cares where I did not know

*64: Three more projects finished and

*65: An unexpected toddler nap

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This post also linked at Holy Experience, sharing with the Gratitude Community in listing my own One Thousand Gifts.






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Reflecting - A Gratitude Ramble

"Well, I'm outta here. See ya later!" He threw up his hands with an intentionally crazy grin and danced away to the tune of the toddler's "it's the end of the world!" mourning. She was prostrate on the floor in the living room, loudly making her case for another day home for Daddy.

It was a sweet (and Sauer - groan if you must, I had to say it!) testimony to a few things I've been collecting on my gratitude list this week, in spite of the sick and the ick we've had at our house.

(And if you think this thankfulness makes me very spiritual, you really need to visit our house to see just how UN-spiritual I have been this week. From wanting credit for my service to whining all day yesterday to pretty much giving up because I haven't felt appreciated - I'm NOT exactly the Proverbs 31 woman here...)

No, I've just been listing goodnesses I noticed this week. I suppose you could say I've really been collecting graces - you know, the stuff God gives in spite of me. Nothing I deserve and all that.

*35: Watching dad and daughter bond through a week of sick.

*36: Finishing my final wedding processing before baby

*37: A Saturday with no processing hanging over my head

*38: Time to enjoy with my family without job responsibility to anyone else

*39: Money that came with exact timing to meet exact need

*40: Two friends with babies safe-birthed in the last two days

*41: Hot showers and steam for congested lungs and heads

*42: Kleenex and symptom relief

*43: A chance to take pictures because I want to

*44: Needed perspective for thankful seemingly overdone

*45: Six days of gray to enjoy a warm house with Christmas cozy

*46: Sunlight after gray.

*47: Christmas tree in the corner with unlost lights in sun. (rearranging miracle, let me note!)

*48: Heart-tender for hard conversations

*49: Scattered rest at night - with breath for sleeping

*50: Nothing pressing on my to-do list.

The photo above is a reflected self-portrait I shot in a shop window during our walk on King Street last year, a walk Pete offered to repeat this last weekend as my health deteriorated. Sigh. I have it as my background photo on my computer now, a reminder that Christmas is coming, a reflection of who I was a year ago.

I'm not so different now, I think. Sure, I'm a mom to two instead of one now. Freed from photographical responsibilities until I choose to take them on again (oh, I'm loving that one!).

Suddenly finding unfettered time to reflect a little, driving around a bit by myself last weekend, I find I am less weighed down than I was. I've been reflecting lately, looking for my reflection, checking for baby-weight and heart-weight and learning to rest and wait for God to convict if He wishes.

Sometimes, all I can do is lay out the "Search me, O God and know my heart" and let Him decide whether He wants to tell me what He knows or not.

This is grace too, I think. He doesn't burden me with me before affirming my knowledge of His heart for me.

Still pretty foggy today - please bear with my rambling. At least I'm mostly conscious!

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.

(Well, when Ann returns to it after an incident with scissors, it will be linked.)





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

In All Circumstances

Be joyful always, pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Being thankful does not come easily to me. Prayer is not always easy either, as it becomes less about the words I say and more about the ache in my heart that does not know how to pray as it ought. Sometimes the concrete is limited to a description of my circumstances.

When I first became ill, collapsing for months on end without a diagnosis, I learned to live outside my circumstances. I learned that the "concrete" I had taken for granted too often blurred together in an endless cycle of shattering disappointments.

One day that year, as a winter afternoon blurred rose-gold into lavender twilight, I poured out my tears and my frustration, asking God why I needed to live anymore? The life I was living was no life at all, and it was nothing that I had dreamed.

The answer came in a song I had sung recently:

When I look into Your holiness
When I gaze into Your loveliness
When all things that surround become shadows
In the light of You

I worship You, I worship You
The reason I live is to worship You

When I've found the joy of reaching Your heart
When my will becomes enthralled in Your love
When all things that surround become shadows
In the light of You

The worship, my appreciation of God as God, became a focus, a center for me then. As words and reasons and lists of things for gratitude fell away, I began to see that if my whole world fell apart He would still be God. His Presence became sanctuary, His heart my refuge.

I’ve been feeling kind of restless
I’ve been feeling out of place
I can hear a distant singing
A song that I can’t write
And it echoes of what I’m always trying to say

There’s a feeling I can’t capture
It’s always just a prayer away
I want to know the ending
Things hoped for but not seen
But I guess that’s the point of hoping anyway

Of going home, I’ll meet you at the table
Going home, I’ll meet you in the air
And you are never too young to think about it
Oh, I cannot wait to be home

I’m confined by my senses
To really know what you are like
You are more than I can fathom
And more than I can guess
And more than I can see with you in sight

But I have felt you with my spirit
I have felt you fill this room
And this is just an invitation
Just a sample of the whole
And I cannot wait to be going home

Going home, I’ll meet you at the table
Going home, I’ll meet you in the air
And you are never too young to think about it
Oh, I cannot wait to be going, to be going home

Face to face, how can it be?

'Cause this is just an invitation
Just a sample of the whole
And I cannot wait to be going home...

- Sara Groves, Going Home(Click title to listen.)

After knowing this nearness, the things in my life sometimes don't mean enough to me for gratitude. Really, there aren't words to describe His Godness. I measure His goodness and realize how limited is my perspective.

Thirteen: Spiced Orange Cheese Blintzes I had been craving for weeks. (Recipe to follow soon.)

Fourteen: A little unexpected money to help with a Christmas tree for dreams and light and special before Button comes.

Fifteen: Tiny pink boots and sweet, sweet memories found during weekend cleaning.

Sixteen: Bright, bright sunspots on fresh-mopped floors.

Seventeen: Little girl mischief that comes out in a smile. Irrepressible, precocious, so precious.

Eighteen: Carwashes and rushing water and silly faces on an adventure with Mom and Dad.

Nineteen: "Happy" and "Sad" and "Loopy" and "Sleepy" playing games with Daddy who really knows how to play.

Twenty: A bed that is made together on Monday, in spite of shower dressing and breakfast and hair-doing.

Twenty-One: Receiving blankets, stacked and waiting for new life...

Twenty-Two: New life that is growing, growing, growing...

Twenty-Three: And sweaters for cold arms and the need for them because fall has finally arrived

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.






(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

Counting Today

My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him.
- Ps. 62:5

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Someone called me an "expectant mother" today. I've not heard that one before. I mean, I have, but it wasn't about me. I guess it's true though. Six weeks from my due date, I am learning that silent wait, that God-expectation, that indefinable wonder that must have caused Mary's heart-pondering.

Every Monday, I check in at Ann Voskamp's Holy Experience, where she expands her list of a thousand God-gifts in photos and in words. I've shared a few "gratefuls of my own" here and there, but it is not easy for me.

I've been thinking for months that I'd like to join Ann's Gratitude Community, start listing and numbering and photographing what I find of God in my daily life. Recognize my expectation from Him.

But I am still learning what God-expectation looks like, how He meets it.

Piper is learning too. To count. You know, she can count to twelve now? Again and again, she practices on whatever comes to her mind to count. It's such a simple thing for a child to learn.

I'm too tired to choose anything but simple today, so I'll count with her, too tired to get up and dance with her; I hold and rock and count teardrops that don't make much sense except for feeling.

One - I noticed my shadow on Saturday. Straight on, it is still my own shadow. When I turn to the side, I see life that is not my own.

Two - We thought about moving from this little house to a bigger house recently. But the sun lives here almost all the time, and it paints everything with the most lovely light.

Three (or Phree, as Piper would say) - I don't know what I would do without the man I married, who I would be if he were not in my life. I can't imagine loving or being loved by anyone who isn't him.

Four - I caught little bare feet on camera, running through cold water-reflection at sunrise.

Five - We had a quiet moment alone yesterday, wondering how we can afford to have any more money removed from Pete's small paycheck to pay taxes and fines on something we can't use, with two children now and my health issues. God is still God.

Six - Nanook is putting out her "kitty want ad," begging kittens or a $200+ operation. Our friends gave us a ticket for a free spay. The next day, our neighbors gave us seven coupons for free kitty litter, all good through April. And several more coupons for free dry food.

Seven - The pregnant pain is building slowly to its climax. I am still breathing. I have only six weeks left.

Eight - I caught Piper smelling the flowers on her dress this morning. I love that she finds beauty already.

Nine - Promises kept make memory that breathes over and over again.

Ten - We had a visit from two of my siblings come down from college this weekend. It was good to get to know them a bit more.

Eleven - For breakfast, I ate farm fresh eggs. The kind that have deep golden yolks because the laying hens get to eat bugs all day. (I don't think I want to know why the bugs make the yolks so healthy and flavorful. Something to do with the Omega-3 proteins...)

Twelve - My little girl dances. And hops. "Pop, pop, pop!" all over the house.

I think it may take us a while to reach a thousand...

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

The Gift in the Ache

Sometimes, I want this more than I want Canaan, more than I want to live the faith that led me out of my chosen earth-home to follow my husband where God opened a door for him, for us. Sometimes, my lip quivers and I swallow tears, watching light and countryside and memories I have loved flash past, peeling away with a lingering ache behind our car as I ride back into yellow and scrabbled foliage and heated flatlands that just aren't home.

It is time, I know, to let God lead us, and He does in His time, in His way that is not my way. It is very vulnerable, this faith of mine that hopes, hopes, hopes He might lead us back to a place we know and love, while living grateful where I am, learning to love a new place for what He has given, despite the biting bugs and allergic humidity and soupy yellow light. And when He gives good, the holding-it-loosely feels as though it will break me apart with the constant knowledge that it won't last, it can't last, I can never be home here, because my heart-home is with Him, beholding Him, more complete in Him than I can fathom or dream or imagine.

I wonder where Canaan is, wishing it was here, half-praying an earth-fulfillment of the promise, knowing and groaning with an ache and a hope that wasn't mine before Jesus, before His Spirit filled me up with desire to be one with a heavenly Father, my Abba who cares for me.

It is a repeated theme, a constant reminding ouch to redirect my eyes from here to hope, an unfulfilled wish, thwarted desire that draws me into Desire Himself. And joy is quiet, glory-light seeping into my heart through diamond-tears, crystal-tears, salt-and-water-tears, something outside my dust. I see His faithfulness. I learn to trust His slow working that feels too slow, but must happen in His time, when He brings morning after the night.

It is time, I know, to be grateful, and I will learn rest again, because I know He is good.

Is this contentment, this whole-body-ache that keeps me stayed in Him? I probe and I ponder and I cautiously assess His gifts, Himself, the Truth that is a Person, the Word that is not mere words, that lives powerful in me and binds my heart up with Him.

And in the all-I-want-and-do-not-have, I have found the real, the grateful,

the small house that is not too small,
the baby boy growing and living in me,
the little girl learning new words and new love
parent hugs and sister hugs,
and little-brother salvation to leave me speechless
one soft night in my home-bed
and enough. Today, I have enough

and God is good and He is who He says He is, and I am not afraid.

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

awhhh...

I go out of town for a week (well, it was a bit longer than that), and I receive a sweet blog award from Traci at Ordinary Inspirations!


Thank you so much for the encouragement, Traci!

grateful - my need to remember God

Because He does not always seem so near as I would wish Him to be.

"It seems that we humans need a practice of gratitude and that the practice requires repetition, as if it were a kind of spiritual breathing. We don’t forget to breathe but we can forget to express our gratitude.

Emerson has a remarkable image at the start of Nature: “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty….”

Every night they come out…, and we walk under them unaware. A gratitude practice feeds awareness such that we might be less forgetful of the mystery of creation. How strange to be born into a human body! How mysterious to have the gift of consciousness! How wonderful to find companions whose spirits mingle with ours, and enlarge us, so we are not alone."

- Lewis Hyde, in a letter to his The Gift readers at High Calling Blogs, posted today at High Calling Blogs

Words written to thank, to encourage gratitude, words written in Spirit-tandem with One Thousand Gifts at Holy Experience and a still small voice reminding me to dwell on what I have seen God do, on who I have seen Him to be, on what He has said of Himself, for Himself.

I don't have words, just feeling for heaven-directed question-wonder, a little confusion, a little bit of lost. I feel I am always late, slow to come, slow to see, slow to remember. But I ponder today, grateful for grace, for time outside of time and eternal patient wooing of this one small and frightened heart. It is good to thank Him, for He is good.

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south.

Some wandered in desert wastes,
finding no way to a city to dwell in;
5hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way
till they reached a city to dwell in.
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
For he satisfies the longing soul,
and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
prisoners in affliction and in irons,
for they had rebelled against the words of God,
and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;
they fell down, with none to help.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and burst their bonds apart.
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
For he shatters the doors of bronze
and cuts in two the bars of iron.

Some were fools through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;
they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from their destruction.
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!

Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the great waters;
they saw the deeds of the LORD,
his wondrous works in the deep.
For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
their courage melted away in their evil plight;
they reeled and staggered like drunken men
and were at their wits’ end.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,
and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

He turns rivers into a desert,
springs of water into thirsty ground,
a fruitful land into a salty waste,
because of the evil of its inhabitants.
He turns a desert into pools of water,
a parched land into springs of water.
And there he lets the hungry dwell,
and they establish a city to live in;
they sow fields and plant vineyards
and get a fruitful yield.
By his blessing they multiply greatly,
and he does not let their livestock diminish.

When they are diminished and brought low
through oppression, evil, and sorrow,
he pours contempt on princes
and makes them wander in trackless wastes;
but he raises up the needy out of affliction
and makes their families like flocks.
The upright see it and are glad,
and all wickedness shuts its mouth.

Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things;
let them consider the steadfast love of the LORD.

- Psalm 107, ESV

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.

My apologies for the second post today. I process Life as I can in writing; there is much on my heart.