Battery Low

Battery low. Recharge.

My laptop lets me know when it needs a boost. Plug it in and in an hour or so it’s good to go again.

My body lets me know when it’s time for bed. I yawn. I fall asleep watching the news. I go to bed and on a good night, waken refreshed a few hours later.

My spirit lets me know when it’s time to linger with the Lord. Anxiety replaces peace. Irritability shoves patience out of the way. Critical thoughts drive out grace. If I’m smart, I head for the prayer window. I’d like to say I always do that. But sometimes I run on empty, full of fear, irritability and judgmental opinions.

This is the day the Lord has made. His love is faithful and steadfast and his grace is all I need. He is waiting for me. He is waiting for you. His unconditional love never runs dry, and is sufficient. With the help of his Holy Spirit, I believe that and linger in his presence.

Times of refreshing are a gift of God.

Another magical afternoon

Another magical afternoon with my favourite nearly-two-year-old. Oh what a joy to be Gramma!

Today the sun shone as only a summer sun can, warm and inviting, so off we wandered towards the community play park. It’s a couple of weeks since I’ve taken Flick there and I was amazed to see her confidence as she headed up the ladder unaided, and also tried out the short climbing wall. 

We strolled home through the housing complex, where anything might demand closer inspection – a playhouse in a neighbour’s garden, or a gurning baby in the next garden. 

How much detail we miss when we press on through our days, driven by deadlines and rushed by agendas. My dad used to counsel me to take time to smell the roses. I’d add to that, take time to see things through the eyes of a child. 

We live in a breathtaking world, the gift of God. Let’s take better care of it.

God's Grand Recycling Scheme

A simply glorious morning. I sat down to write this but felt compelled to abandon it for a bracing walk round the woods. A walk I did once, twice a day with Dusty but have since abandoned, to my loss.

I passed the towering dung pile the farmer has dumped as he’s cleaned his barns through the winter. Rotting into something wonderful.

I returned home, praising the Lord for his gifts and the beauty of this day, and took the kitchen garbage round to the compost bin. In it went – a small hill of coffee grounds, tangerine skins, potato peelings, onion skin. And then I passed the pile of rotted compost which Don recently moved from the compost heap to the garden. We left it longer this time, maybe a year, and the result in terms of tilth and richness and well-rottedness is evident. Whether or not that will result in a marvellous veggie crop next summer remains to be seen ...

I heard some teaching last night in which the woman declared that our history is part of our destiny. Our past is what makes us who we are today. Our shames keep us humble. Our hurts give us compassion. We may want to erase some memories but God uses them all to bring a fresh crop of righteousness from the gardens of acquaintances and friends where we live. 

There are some memories I’d like to delete. Some things I’d like to have not done. They continue to sit in a big towering pile of dung. One day it will have rotted into something wonderful which will feed the faith of someone else. 

It’s a transformation beyond my imagination, but within my mustard seed of faith. From dung to pure gold. But then, the dazzling diamond comes from the hardest-pressed coal which has had time. Time. 

Your sins are forgiven, Jesus told the woman caught in adultery and the man paralysed by disease. Your sins are forgiven, and in God’s amazing recycling scheme, they are transformed into something beautiful.

Amazement. Humility. Overwhelming gratitude. Awe and wonder. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is everlasting life in his perfect son Jesus Christ. 

A day like today, clear and still after days of stormy winds, encourages me to breathe deep the forgiveness and love of God, and be thankful. Forever thankful. Those he has forgiven much, love much.

Find Joy in Each Day

One of the essential elements of a life well lived is joy. My daughter sent me a card with the above encouragement on it: Find joy in each day. I’ve positioned the card beside a photograph taken last spring of Mhairi, my mother and me, with my mother wearing a funny nose and eyebrows/glasses, and Mhairi in a lovely moment of abandonment to joy. 

The joy of the Lord is your strength, the Bible advises. What is the essence of joy? I think it is trust, a deep trust that despite whatever life is throwing at us, God is in control and his plans are for our good because he loves us. That frees us to be joyful. To let go of anxiety. To abandon fearful thinking. 

Joy involves living in the moment. Noticing the small detail of life and celebrating it. The contagious laughter of a child. The free canter of a herd of horses charging round a field. The gambolling of spring lambs. 

It enables us to declare, it is well with my soul. 

It is an acceptance that life is uncertain but what is assured is that I have this moment. This moment.

I don’t know what your life looks like at this moment, but here, though clouds scud around and the forecast is thundery and grey, the sun beams down right now. I’ve done a couple things on my to-do list. I’ve got plenty more on that list but for now, I am going to enjoy the moment, enjoy the presence of God in my life, and celebrate the life he’s given me.

There is an abundance of joy to be found in this day.

As I write these words, though, I am so aware that not everyone is experiencing a ‘neutral’ day like I am. There are grieving relatives of those lost on the shot-down Malaysian airliner. There are terrified inhabitants of war-torn lands, of Gaza and Israel, of Syria and Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, Nigeria, and so on and on and on. 

Finding joy in the midst of such pain and trauma is more than a matter of strength of mind. It must be a gift of God which penetrates the agony and gives a glimpse that there is more, there is better, God has plans for everyone and they are plans for good and not for harm. 

My prayer as I celebrate life and God’s love, is that those who are stuck in a fearful storm of life will have moments today punctuated by a shaft of God’s love and light, penetrating the pain and instilling hope and yes, even joy.

The joy of the Lord is your strength. There is more to life than what we see.

5 - 2

Fasting from food for two days a week seems to be the new miracle cure. Not only does it result in weight loss, but it also gives overworked organs a chance to rest and recover. 

Our bodies are such miracles of creation. I believe that God intervenes in startlingly miraculous ways sometimes to heal, but maybe the even greater miracle is that he has given us bodies with the innate ability to heal themselves. A child’s skinned knee, which scabs over while new skin is formed beneath the tear. The nuisance of the runny nose of a cold, which eventually dries up and equilibrium is restored. 

Perhaps the one ingredient required from us in this mix is time. We need to give ourselves time to heal. Time in bed when we are sick. Time off from eating when we are overweight. We need to find the rhythm of life which allows us to take time, without feeling guilty.

Our spirits, too, need time. To continually bombard our minds and ears with noise, with arguments and anxieties and stimulation, wears us out spiritually and gives us no time to experience the amazing reality of this world God has placed us in. 

We need to take time to sit and stare. To breathe deep. To enjoy the changing seasons. To laugh with a child, play with a dog or a cat. 

We need time to be. 

Will you join me today, and fast from busyness so that you can recover some of your balance and life? 

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It is the gift of God, and it can come in snatches every day, as well as in one big chunk on the weekend.