In the beginning...

In the beginning.

Sunday night. The beginning of a new week. I like to look at the shape of the week to come, of my week to come. Being a writer who needs loose time, time to fidget and dally and finally settle into writing mode, I welcome a week whose landscape includes some empty terrain. Rarely am I looking at such a landscape, but with a little planning I can usually squeeze pockets of it in, now and then.

Worst of all weeks are those pockmarked by meetings: it depends what meetings, I confess, because some meetings are great: creative and prayerful, and include spending time with people I know and enjoy. But not all are.  Not so keen on appointments, either, because those invariably involve valuable time spent in waiting rooms. Good idea to remember to take a book to redeem the time: note to self for tomorrow morning.

Great weeks are those dimpled with time spent with loved ones, and I am blessed with many loved ones within driving distance. It may not always be so, and not all of my loved ones are in driving distance, so I make the most of the moments. To spend time with wee ones, watching personalities develop and creativity spark is a blessing, pure joy. To spend time with grown ones who will always be my wee ones, is inspiring and, in the true sense of the word, awesome.

Great weeks include those where the appointments are with God and special praying friends. Soaring together in the Spirit. Yes.

Great weeks are also those celebrating love and life. Celebrating and remembering forty-two years spent with my soul-mate: enjoying memories of the ups, usually laughing at memories of the downs, and being full of gratitude for them all.

Yes, a great week coming up. Thanks and praise to God for those everlasting arms which have always held us safe.

Sprint!

‘Sprint!’ 

It always sounded like a bad joke. When I was in high school, we had to do a series of physical fitness tests President Kennedy introduced to make sure young folk were keeping fit and not getting obese. Sounds kind of current, eh?

The tests ranged from doing as many sit-ups as you could in a set time (I think it was a minute or so), press-ups, 50-yard-dash, throwing the softball as far as you could, and the one I hated the most, the long-distance run. I think it was 660-yards, which doesn’t sound so far but I don’t like running, unless it’s on a tennis court after a tennis ball. It was so competitive. With my PE class standing on the sidelines and the teacher with the stop watch, it was further than I wanted to run, and certainly I didn’t want to be timed! 

Reaching the home stretch, the cries would go up from friends and classmates, ‘Sprint!’ I always felt my lungs would collapse, or my legs would turn to jelly and give way, and I never seemed to be able to dig deep enough for that final burst of speed. Reaching the finish line would be enough for me: I didn’t care about the time.

The Bible advises that if we are to run our life’s race with endurance, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus. He was able to go to the cross because his focus was on God and the joy of reunion with his Father. Sometimes a season of life is like a long-distance run. If there is a finish line in sight, those last yards can seem to stretch forever and demand our last ounces of strength. Never mind a burst of speed; we just need to cross the line. It can help to have friends encouraging from the sidelines, but sometimes it’s enough to know they are praying you over the finish line. 

Praying for those today who are nearing the finish line.

How can that be?

Today my baby is turning 30. How can that be? He and his wife and two wee kids are visiting my Mom in California – my Mom who is going to turn 93 this summer. How can that be? Mhairi, my daughter is with them and they plan a grand day out to Catalina Island. They are swarming over my own birth place and starting place while I am thousands of miles away. How can that be?

These are the normal things that happen as life opens out one day at a time. 

But this morning we awoke to news of an horrific tower block fire with numerous casualties. People leaping from the building and shocked and bereaved wandering the streets below in gut-wrenching grief. How can that be? 

This is not a normal thing. This should not have been. Something has gone wrong somewhere to turn a modern, newly-refurbished apartment tower into a blazing inferno. No fire alarms to awaken sleeping residents. Other shortfalls hinted at in the first reports.

Praying for London this morning.

Just before Dawn

Always darkest just before dawn. We were out on the forward deck before 4 am; the moon shone but the focus was the approaching skyline of New York City. Perhaps the camera shook a bit with my shivering, but there was no way I was going back inside. I stood on deck with Don, poised for the gradual revealing of this iconic sight.

The Queen Mary 2 (CCR’s ‘Proud Mary’ going through my head – I guess that dates me!) ploughed ahead through the still waters of the Atlantic. We’d been told a pilot would come aboard but we didn’t see that transaction. But good to know that a local expert would guide us through the waters so that we would sail up the channel that is wide and deep enough for this huge vessel – and also that we would navigate safely beneath the Verrazano Bridge, which we cleared by a mere four metres or so.

Life can be dark and treacherous. Good to know that God has given us a pilot, his Holy Spirit, who comes on board to guide us through the darkness. Sometimes when things are rough we do just want to hide away, scarcely able to believe that it will ever get better. But if we can stand the shivering, it’s good to have our eyes on the horizon, watching for those first lights which herald a new dawn, a new day. 

Praying for all those affected by the Manchester bombing. Praying they will be able to hold on for the light that still burns bright and beckons us onward. Praying that out of this atrocity will come new shoots of love, blessings of peace.

God is good. Even in the darkness, he is with us, guiding us forward into the light.

God has the Power

God has the power.

The Bible reveals God as being love. Not as Someone who just loves a lot. The very essence of his being is love. He can’t do anything else but love. That is who he is. God is Love. Love is God.

He created everything. I am looking out at a flowering garden which has flourished in the warmth and good weather this summer. The roses are huge and fragrant. 

I, too, should be flowering. I have flourished in the warmth and goodness of God’s love. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that God has the power to cause all kinds of gifts to overflow to you. All kinds of gifts.

He is love. He is good. He has the power. Do I have the faith to believe that and the perseverance to pursue it? To pursue him, for the gifts he has given me to overflow within me?

Paul also wrote, to Timothy, that he should fan into flame the gift of God. One of the gifts I believe God has given me is an ability to write and a desire to write for him. But lately I’ve allowed busyness to intervene, to steal reflective moments when creativity is birthed and can grow. 

Lately? Maybe most of my life I’ve allowed myself to be driven by the obvious (an untidy house, mountain of ironing, proliferation of weeds, etc etc) and loosely considered that I will write more when I have more time.

This is the day that the Lord has made. Today. I may not have tomorrow. I may never have more time than I have today.

I am repenting of my own distractedness and praying for perseverance in fanning into flame one of the gifts God has given me. I want to flower. I want to flourish and produce writing that blesses others, that feeds the souls of people, that draws them to God and that helps them laugh and enjoy the gift of life.

What gifts has God given you, that you long to see flourish? Because he has the power. And the will. And the love. Trust in him. That’s what I’m trying to do.