Easter morning ... the waiting is over

Waiting

For hours Dusty has been waiting. I had to bake cookies and a cake in the top oven because the bottom one is broken. That seemed to take hours. Well, it did.

Then I made asparagus soup, just to have to fill the gaps of anyone who doesn’t eat enough hot cross buns tomorrow. 

Now I am here, but there...she’s just walked through the room again, looking at me with reproach, with longing, with hope and expectation.

Waiting is never easy for any of us.

Holy Saturday...Easter Saturday...a day of waiting. The Passover...the Sabbath. Nobody stirred, certainly not to go and defile oneself by washing and anointing a dead body. 

But the women could hardly wait until dawn on Sunday to get to that tomb and do their last act of service – or so they thought – for their Lord. The Marys, Salome, Joanna. They’d watched where Joseph of Arimathea had laid the body and they ran at dawn, wondering aloud how they would move that huge stone blocking the opening of the tomb.

Their time of waiting ended wonderfully, beyond all their imagining – despite Jesus’ teaching of what would happen to him. 

An empty tomb. Jesus himself, alive and risen. And then the rush back to the men, who didn’t really believe them. 

Then more waiting for him to show himself to the disciples, to the others, and finally, for him to send the Holy Spirit once he’d returned to heaven.

A lot of waiting, with hope and expectation.

May your waiting be full of hope and expectation, and may it end in joy and celebration.

Happy Easter.

In the Wake of the Cross

Silent walk behind the cross this morning, trudging the familiar trail through Banchory. Stopping at several wide-spots along the way to hear the story again. To imagine the rejection, the loneliness, the courage and the pain of Jesus on that first Good Friday.

Silent walk. Time to reflect. To think about his sacrifice. To recognise that feeling worthless is self-indulgent and untrue; why would Jesus have died for me, or for you, if we were worthless? In the words of the ad for a beauty product, he died ‘because we’re worth it’. 

Sometimes that is hard to see. Where we see the problems, Jesus sees the potential. He made each one of us. He knows what is inside of us. He knows how to draw the best out ... if we just let him.

Spend some time in silence today. Think about why Jesus did it. Why he left his glory in heaven to live amongst struggling, poor people. Why he allowed himself to be pinned to the cross. 

Because, in his eyes, ‘we’re worth it’. I know, hard to believe. But it’s true not because of who we are, but of who he is.

Silent walk. Time to reflect on my own path. There are things which obscure the road ahead. Is it straight? Does it turn sharply, or bend gently up ahead? Where are the potholes? Where is the ditch? 

Uncertainties fog my vision and I just don’t know. If I allow it to, fear could grip me and paralyse me into inaction, negating faith.

I won’t allow it to. There is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear. And what I see on the cross of Calvary is perfect love. Perfect love named Jesus.

Where there are problems, there is potential. Opportunity for me to see God act in amazing ways. I am open for that. I am alert and watching, my hand firmly in the hand of Jesus as I expect him to lead me through the fog. 

I refuse to stand shivering in indecision. I will walk forward, one step at a time, into a future full of hope and joy. 

All because of what Jesus has done on the cross, memorialised today, on Good Friday.

Thanks be to God.

Beautiful Just Because

Transitioned back into the green and peaceful countryside halfway around the world from California. Yes, the wind has a sharp edge and the sun lacks some of that deep warmth it has in Long Beach. But the daffodils and tulips are out, the trees are beginning to leaf and the fields are carpeted in spring green. It’s lovely.

Dusty is sticking close. As we walked her round the woods last night and again today, we stopped to admire the pocket of primulas which lies almost hidden along the path. Don commented that though nobody (except us!) may pause to admire these primulas, they will bloom to the glory of God anyway. Aha! Theme for today’s blog!

The integrity of these flowers – if in fact flowers can have integrity! No motivation of impressing anyone. Simply blooming because that is what they were created to do. I think I’ve written before that the birds do that, but in fact they often are motivated by the search for a mate or the need to communicate danger. These primulas, or primroses, or whatever wild flowers blooming in remote corners of the earth, are just blooming beautiful because. Because. No more reason than that. 

I want to be authentic like that. Honest before God. I am sure that all my efforts to make myself beautiful for God only serve to obscure the deep beauty that he has planted in me. My pretenses to be more compassionate than I truly am. My efforts to be all that I think He wants me to be – when all he wants is for me to be myself, the myself which is at its deepest level, not overlaid with self-image or cultural or religious expectations.

How could I ever improve on what God has made me to be? And yet it’s so hard just to be. 

May you and I both be exactly who God made us to be, today and every day. May we bloom for the pleasure of God, and not for any other reason.

Just because.

Blood moon

Blood moon. I see this lunar event is due to happen about 2 am EST tomorrow morning, and all sorts of folk are reading cataclysmic events into it. As there are four such events predicted over the next eighteen months, it is difficult to see when the disasters will fall, but that hasn't stopped people poring over scriptures and pronouncing doom and end times gloom on us all.

I know Jesus told us to keep alert, and to be aware of the signs of the times, but he also said that nobody but the father knows when the end will come.

I think the wisest thing must be to keep our focus on Jesus, not on the blood moons, though they do sound very dramatic, nor on the various prophets. Perhaps they will turn out to be right, or perhaps not, but nobody who is focused on Jesus will go wrong.

Faith, not fear. That was Jesus' advice.

Sleepless in Long Beach

A night when sleep has mostly eluded me for some reason. Just been listening to worship music, reflecting on the week to come.

Today is Palm Sunday. I think of Jesus looking with love at Jerusalem, and weeping, wishing he could gather his people under his wings.

Without wishing to elevate myself to his level, I am poised, too, at the beginning of this Holy Week, and perhaps tonight I glimpse another facet of the heartbreak Jesus was feeling. That sense that despite all his divine efforts, he must have had the sense that as he prepared to leave the earth and return to the Father, there were still a lot of loose ends, unfinished business, people ... Even those who loved him and knew him best ... Who did not understand.

I am preparing to leave, too, having spent almost a month here helping my dear mom. I want to feel confident that I have everything in place for her to walk with confidence through whatever the next days, weeks, and months hold for her. But I don't feel confident. I feel like weeping, too, and feel like gathering her close to me protectively. And yet I can't.

Jesus had to leave the earth with unfinished business yet to be done. He had to entrust his disciples to the Father, his mother to his friend. His of course was a desperately lonely and painful path, through the next few days leading up to Good Friday, and mine is nothing like that.

And yet, maybe a little. There is such a sorrow at partings, as faces crumple and stomachs churn. Those last, longing glances. Those final hugs and brave smiles. That sense of walking away alone, into the unknown of the next few days, weeks and months.

Jesus was going home, and yet the path was horrible for him. He was returning home, and yet he was leaving home, his home on earth with family and friends.

I am going home, to people who love me and the life I have been granted there, and there is joy and anticipation in that. But I, too, am leaving home, the house where I grew up, the mother who raised me, the daughter who I raised, and so a sense of anguish and loss.

As I prepare to pack my bags ... For unlike Jesus, I have a baggage allowance ... I feel like I stand on the hill looking with love at those I am about to leave behind, before beginning the slow and long descent into the week that is coming. I pray that The Lord will finish the things I have not seen, or managed, to do.

Jesus is closer than ever.

Senses

I am savouring my last few days in this glorious climate, and trying to be aware of all the various sensations I can experience. My ears, for instance, are aware of the kind of boring birdsong of what I imagine is a sparrow. I remember the huge variety we hear at Barehillock and this is pretty monochromatic. Then there is the constant backdrop of traffic on the freeway. It never stops, just changes from motorbikes and huge trucks to the steady swish of cars. Not many sirens, not like in LA. A private plane passes overhead, humming a counterpoint. I hear paper shuffling in the room next door and pray there is no anxiety going on. Will go check soon.

Then the sense of warmth on my skin. The forecast was not this good, but God is, and he has provided another day of clear blue skies and hot sun. Perfect. This is definitely a big plus for this area.

The roses are out, and their scent is intoxicating.

The hummingbirds are busy, darting here and there, so much fun to watch.

The taste of the water. Hmm. Nothing like the fresh clear purity of what we drink in Scotland. But I drink more of it here. Not good.

This is a good world which God has created. Each area blessed in different ways. I am so blessed to be able to experience a variety. I will be thankful for that blessing, and not be anxious about what is going on on one side of the world, while I am on the other. But I do feel, in the pit of my stomach, that flutter which comes as I begin to prepare for the journey.

I will trust God to help me to prepare in every way. The Bible promises that we have the mind of Christ, so I will trust him to be in charge, step by step, day by day.

X

Low Battery

First the warning flashed up on this iPad. Low battery. Only 10% left. And an option to dismiss the notice. Which I did, and continued to work.

Then it flashed up again. Low battery. Only 5% left. Again I dismissed it, but then thought better of it and plugged in, so that now I am working while tethered to the electrical outlet.

How often do we get notices in our bodies that we are running nearly on empty, and dismiss the warnings?  Sometimes I act as if I am immortal and can keep pushing on without suffering any repercussions. Occasionally I discover that isn't true, like I have recently with my back pain situation. How much easier it would have been had I not pressed on trying to,do something when I wasn't feeling that great? Perhaps I'd never have injured my back and be sitting fat and happy now! Well, note to self, next time I have a virus I will leave the empty coal scuttle for Don!

How often do we ignore the signals that our spiritual batteries are running perilously close to empty too? We whisper a word or two to God and carry on. It's pretty bad...not just because it hurts us and our impact in the world, but what sort of message does it send to God, our Lord and Saviour? It's a message of dismissal, that though we would love to talk with him we just have more important business to attend to today.

Like what? Like what is more important?

So important to recharge regularly. Not going to dismiss that warning today. So, over and out.