Astonished and Amazed - A Friday Find

A week ago I wrote this post...

A week ago I opted to rest and rely on a God who loved Caleb far beyond my capacity...

Whose wisdom is beyond my ability to comprehend...

And seek His solution...His way.

Monday I was humbled, by a voice on the end of the phone, to hear that the Lord had "turned the heart of the king"...

That, indeed, Caleb has a great God...

And all the barriers that were standing in the way of Caleb receiving the services he deserved and needed for a meaningful life crumbled by standing firm and trusting God.

There are no words that can express my awe of God's Divine intervention...

He is alive...He cares...He is involved!

Faith of My Father

There are many things I love about West Virginia...any season...  One of the things that have always charmed me about West Virginia are their churches...

Little, white wooden churches with simple names...dotting the hillsides on old country roads...

with wooden pews, people still singing out of hymnals--no megachurches here with flashy, audio-visual displays.

And the church is the pillar of the community...the center of  community life.

Four years ago today, I woke up for the first time without my father in this world.  This is him being baptized by his minister and a visiting evangelist.

I miss him every day...but his faith that he lived daily, continues to live in me...all because of this (the actual church) country church of my father.

There's a little mountain church in my thoughts of yesterday
Where friends and family gathered for the Lord
There and old fashioned preacher taught the straight and narrow way
For what few coins the congregation could afford

Dressed in all out Sunday best we sat on pews of solid oak
And I remember how our voices filled the air
How mama sounded like an angel on those high soprano notes
And when the roll is called up yonder I'll be there.

   Looking back now that little mountain church house
   Has become my life's corner stone
   It was there in that little mountain church house
   I first heard the word I've based my life upon.

For Anne and Allison...

I have fought the good fight, 

I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. 

And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness...

I learned this afternoon that the niece of a dear friend went to heaven...the daughter of my daughter's piano teacher...a cousin of someone I watched grow up with my children.  A wife, a mother of three, a daughter, and a shining light of God's grace through the battle of her life with cancer...Allison Kura Armstrong.

It's barely been a month since my mother, Anne Powers, took her last breath...and I chose my image for Texture Tuesday to be from the rose I kept from the spray on her casket.  A wife, a mother of three, a daughter, and also a shining light of God's grace through a 14-year trial enduring Alzheimer's disease.

I have been with loved ones in their final hours before death...including my parents...or as we say where I work, "at their end of life."

As I read the last post from Adam, Allison's husband, and reading tributes written by her Aunt Sue and cousin, Tara...I replayed the July 31-August 1, 2013, being at the bedside of my mother as she finished her race.

While death for us is painful as we see those who love leave us, I believe, as I experienced with my mother at her bedside, that we are privileged to witness a miracle...to be on holy ground.  My finite human mind cannot get its arms around what occurred in that room with my mother...or the room with Allison where her family surrounded her...as death drew near.  I KNOW that realm is more real than the world we see.  Most of all, I know it was the completion of their redemption, the perfection of their faith, God's finished work, the bride and their Bridegroom reaching out to each other...to be separated no more.  A miracle of unfathomable love.

I am ever so grateful to tears to hold on to that same hope and certainty.

Journaling Journeys ~ Truth Will Always Be Truth

I had planned to do a photo shoot and post about my love for journals and the favorites of my collection.  Oh, but as God often does...a detour!  A change in plans...

Last week I felt it was responsible and ethical for me to call attention to some issues at work, although I knew it would cause some difficulty and struggle for someone I care about.

Since then, the Lord reminded me of a message He gave me seven years ago sitting in a waiting room to talk to a counselor about the news of my unmarried 19-year-old daughter's unplanned pregnancy.  (It was in a daily devotional periodical sitting on an end table and I picked it up and read that day's entry as I waited.)

How did God remind me of this?  I had cut it out and glue-sticked into a journal...one of many I was going to photograph Thursday night...  Coincidence?  I think not.

 

Take a good look at this photograph...really look at it!  Then read part of the cut-out page in my journal that follows:

I was reminded of the story of a man who took home a cocoon so he could watch the emperor moth emerge.  As the moth struggled to get through the tiny opening, the man enlarged it with a snip of his scissors.  The moth emerged easily -- but its wings were shriveled.  The struggle through the narrow opening is God's way to force fluid from its body into its wings to support them.  The "merciful" snip, in reality, was cruel.  Without the struggle, the moth would never be able to fly.

Go back and look at that photograph again...you can see where the tubes of fluid are what provides the structure for the wings function.

 

God not only used revisiting that in an old journal, but I had this fascinating opportunity on Saturday to photograph this gorgeous creäture on our butterfly bush in the front yard.

 

In April 2005, God knew I would want to rescue my daughter from the struggle that the coming days would bring.  This week God knew I would want to beat myself up because I did not rescue a young co-worker from the struggle that comes with failure in the early years of a young career.  And He brought this illustration back across my pathway.

 

In all honesty, I do not believe growth is possible without struggle, resistance, adversity, and correction.  I have never been able to get around it.  Just as the struggle of a butterfly creates the strength of its wings, just as the ripping of muscle fibers in the human body creates strength as the muscle heals...so does struggle and adversity in our lives strengthen the muscles of our faith.

 

When I look back on the most precious moments of my life, they always entail struggle and disappointment and failure.  For it has been those times that God's presence has been the sweetest and through the process, He has made me learn and become that which could never occur any other way.

Jesus, may I always see Your gift of  Your strength in the strain  of my struggle.

With gratitude,