Left to my own devices

 

A few years ago, I appropriated the globe left behind in a grown child’s room. I put it in the prayer window, and began putting black stickers on the hot spots in the world especially in need of prayer.

I gave up. I didn’t want to end up with a black ball.

Maybe some of the most heart-breaking words of the gospel are, ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’

This world is aching for its saviour. It is convulsed in pain, as the ecology is compromised and habitats are wrecked, as men take up arms against each other, as greed drives people to pocket more than their share, as fear overwhelms kindness.

Maybe some of the most heartening words were uttered by Jesus: In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.

As we approach Holy Week, my thoughts are on His sacrifice. Overwhelmed by his love. Humbled by his mercy and grace.

I know that left to my own devices, I am one of those black spots I was sticking on the world. Praise God that he didn’t leave me to my own devices.

Amazing Grace

 

Any problems? the dentist asked, staring at his computer screen.

Just a small discoloration on one of the front teeth, I replied, remembering that a dear granddaughter had helpfully pointed it out to me about six months ago. It took that long to get in to see the dentist.

Peering through his magnifiers, he gave his verdict. Wear and tear. Without the protective enamel, the tooth was prone to absorb colours in the food or drink.

Five minutes later, after a bit of gentle polishing and cleaning, he applied some silicon and hey, presto! Dazzling white (sort of) tooth again!

This world inflicts a lot of wear and tear on us, body, soul and spirit. We all get worn down by negative news, disappointments and even suspecting that we have been a disappointment to someone else wears us down. Then we become open to absorb whatever is going at the time – bad attitudes, distorted truths, outright lies.

We may look and act ‘ok’, but spending some time in the Lord’s examining room reveals the truth.

Wear and tear, spending too much time in the world’s matrix perhaps, has left spots on our souls, minds and spirits.

Our Lord, unlike my dentist, doesn’t just cover over the defect. If we invite him, he gives us a good wash and makes us like new.

This is amazing grace.

Thank you!

 

I stretched the seat belt across my friend, incapacitated with a broken right arm.

At the coffee shop, I buttered and put jam on her scone. She kept her jacket on. ‘It’s too hard to get on and off over the cast,’ she explained.

‘We’re eating dinner out every night. It’s nice not to have to clear up any dishes, and I can’t cook with my left hand.’

What a blow it is to have a broken arm!

Forgive me, Lord, for taking the little things for granted. May my every breath today be accompanied by a heartfelt sense of gratitude. Some of your blessings arrive with a fanfare and elicit an immediate flood of thankfulness. Others are small and largely go unnoticed.

Forgive me, Lord. Heighten my awareness of every gentle touch of your loving kindness. Thank you for it all; thank you especially for your love on the cross, Jesus, that love that will not let me go. Thank you.

Spring inside and out

 

Yellow forsythia has sprouted outside this window. The daffodils are opening and raising their trumpets to the heavens; flowering cherry blossom is beginning to burst forth.

The air is nippy but the sun is warm: spring is here.

As new life germinates, sprouts and is born, memories bring a smile to my lips. How effortless the young look, bouncing and jumping, dancing and running and climbing. Life bursts from the young: exuberant and joyful. One granddaughter turns four tomorrow, and she is a joyful bundle of energy.

Happy birthday, Princess Pearl.

Decades older than Princess Pearl, I rely on God’s life and energy to burst from me…or I try to. Let your light shine, Jesus commands. These days it’s his light I hope to project. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that my light is fickle, but his is faithful and true.

So however I feel today, full of vim and vigour or a little weary and worn, I hope to be a conduit for Jesus, the light of the world, to illuminate the darkness and fog of worldly thought and action.

Spring has sprung inside and out. Hallelujah!

Scattered Crocus

 

Clumps of cheery crocus sprout randomly in the flower beds and on the verge of the driveway. Regal purple and rich gold cradled in their voluptuous green leaves. A glorious sight to behold.

On the winter-ravaged lawn and in occasional spots in the flower beds, a lonely crocus bravely flowers. These are the bulbs which somehow became uprooted in a frenzy of weeding, or were dropped and forgotten when others were being planted. Separated from their like, they are beautiful anyway as they strive to establish themselves in a new, different space.

Refugees the world over are like those scattered crocus bulbs. May God bless and enrich each uprooted life, replanted in a foreign space far from all that is familiar, anxious and bruised and broken. May we be welcoming as we show them the face of Jesus.

Come to me, Jesus said, all who are tired and weary, and you’ll find rest for your souls. May those uprooted and scattered through no desire of their own fall on fertile ground, where they meet the living God through His disciples on earth.

Spring through the Clutter

 

I have spent hours during my life sorting lego from playmobile, stickle bricks from wooden blocks, crayons and pens and pencils. That phase of my life is over, but the clutter that now seems to reproduce like rabbits in spring piles up around me.

I love the idea of walking lightly through life, leaving a small footprint, but it’s harder to do that when the house fills up with inherited cups and chairs and so on, in addition to our own accumulated treasures and trash.

Treasures and trash. One person’s love for an item doesn’t necessarily pass down the line. Even the special china valued because of its sentimental associations loses meaning as it goes down to those who never knew the original owner.

The daffodils are up and not far from starting to open. They pushed their way through the carpet of leaves and sticks left from last season, and are ready to herald spring.

May the Lord help me to push my way through the clutter, to rise up and herald our hope in the Lord Jesus, who promises to make all things new.

Spring is a wonderful season, a gift of love from our Creator God.

The Face of Jesus

 

One devotional I am following at the moment suggested I close my eyes and ask to see the face of Jesus. It gave a series of questions that would reveal what sort of character I thought God had. The final one was, ‘Can you see his face at all?’

To be honest, no. I couldn’t see his face, looking angry or pleased or bored or anything. Just a blank. What did that mean? I have no imagination? I have no faith? I don’t think he’s even there?

Then the phone rang. A good friend calling to ask about my sore foot, saying she was praying for me.

Sometimes the face of Jesus doesn’t look like a face at all.

Stay Safe

 

Winter isn’t finished with us yet.

No plows or gritters have cleared our road yet, and now as the wind picks up, the drifts will become an issue.

It may not look like much to a Ukrainian, but this amount of snow in Scotland requires program revisions. So the hair appointment is delayed til next week, the plans for food shopping put on hold, and the oil suppliers called to ensure they can still deliver today or tomorrow.

I used to love a snow day, when one’s best-laid plans were ditched because the schools were closed. Now, I’m not so sure.

I lift my eyes to the hills, snow-capped, and ask God to help me make best use of the revised time-table for today, and maybe the rest of the week. May I walk through this day with grace and peace. May this unexpected gift of the day open up new possibilities as I wait on the Lord.

Stay safe.

Not always what it seems

 

The body of the little song bird lies dead in front of the conservatory windows. Although Indy is usually to be found asleep in the house, she does venture out daily for brief forays so immediately, she got the dirty looks and harsh words.

But maybe they were undeserved. We’ve had dead birds around the big windows before … they’ve mistakenly flown at speed into the glass and been stunned, or killed.

Things are not always as they seem. I can be quick to apportion blame, to make assumptions.

Lord, give me a generous spirit, eager to help those who are in need without rushing to point the finger. Judge not, and all that.

Sorry, Indy.

Life-draining funghi

 

I settled into the prayer window, later than usual. We were slower to rise, then the neighbour came in for a coffee. His life is challenging as he tries to navigate the choppy waters of life as a refugee.

I noticed the fungi creeping up the trunk of a tree outside the window. I’ve seen it before, but not taken note. This morning my eye rested on it as I recognised that, left to spread, it will eventually kill the tree.

What fungus is creeping up in my life, I wondered. What parasitic life-sucking attitude or thought-pattern has crept in unnoticed? What hurt or wound have I ignored and allowed to fester, which may be leaking its poison into my mind, my soul?

A reading from Psalm 55 made me think of the rejection Jesus suffered. That rejection might have blurred his vision of his clear call from the Father, but he didn’t allow it to. He spent hours with his Father, demonstrating the power and love of relationship with God.

The final reading in the devotional I am following was in Jeremiah 31:3-4a: I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt.

Lord, I pray this morning that you will rip off any negative, life-draining attitudes and thoughts which I have allowed to take root in me. Clean me up, Lord, so that I might flourish and blossom and bloom and be all that I can be, for your glory, Lord. Amen.

 

Bloom where you are planted

 

I approached the driveway and as I turned the car in, noticed three or four golden crocus blooming bravely on the tractor’s path into the field.

I’ve not seen them there before, and then remembered Don taking Greg down the drive a couple of years ago, planting the potpourri of bulbs which had been accidentally unearthed during the previous summer’s gardening activities.

Gregor probably planted those wee bulbs, and now they are blooming, in rather a precarious position. Hopefully, the farmer will enter and leave his field by the other gate over the next few weeks!!

A dear friend who moved here from the US had a plant pot in her kitchen, which bore the phrase, written on a wooden flower: bloom where you are planted. Kerry certainly did that, and she helped water the faith of many here where she was planted.

We are not always  planted in verdant pastures. Sometimes we are planted along tractor paths. In apparent wilderness places. Dependent then on Him for sustenance, for sunshine and water and food, those wilderness places can be places of personal flourishing.

May God help me, today, and you too, wherever we are planted, to bloom. To his glory.