Do Not Pass the Palette...Do Not Collect $200

I sit at my laptop gazing out the window...not sure how to write what the "committee in my head" has been mulling over the past few days...

I did something this week I rarely do...take PTO (paid time off) in winter...not just one, but TWO days...

Simply because I knew I needed it...the battery of this cordless screwdriver was running on mere fumes (do batteries have fumes?)...  Empty, joyless, trying to run with cement shoes on.  Barren...

And yet, something told me, "Don't waste these days..."  I guess you'll be hearing more about how valuable this time has been over a series of posts.  Who wants a long read, right?

First off, "My name is Denise F. and I'm an introvert..." (a parody of an AA meeting), so how do I recharge? 

Rather than list those ways...I'll have you see some of those ways in my posts over the next few days.

I went into my studio (our third bedroom that has desks and cupboards and supplies...but no bed) not really knowing where my time would take me.

We've been studying the book of Hebrews in church...parallel to that, another congregation is as well whose podcasts I download...Beth Tikkun Messianic Fellowship (which means "place of restoration").  I thought I would listen to the introduction to Hebrews from their pastor, L. Grant Luton.

He was using an analogy of an artist, an artist's palette, and a painting as a way to introduce what Hebrews is all about.  And my mind drifted back to a song/poem I had heard a long time ago as a teenager...called The Brush...the songwriter wrote it about his life:

 

Life started out like a canvas,
And God started painting on me,
But I took the paintbrush from Jesus,
And painted what I wished to see.

The colours I painted kept running,
And the objects were all out of size,
I had made a mess of my painting,
My way now seemed so unwise.

Then I gave my painting to Jesus,
All the colours, all the pieces so wrong.
In the markets of earth it was worthless,
But His blood made my painting belong.

He worked with no condemnation,
Never mentioned the mess I had made.
Then He dipped His brush in the rainbow,
And signed it, the price has been paid.

When I gave the brush back to Jesus,
When I gave the brush back to Him
He started all over life?s canvas to fill,
When I gave to Jesus the brush of my will.

 

Words and Music by Chuck Milhuff

 

And here is that songwriter and the song sung by Ben Speer of the Speer Family:

 



Now...I love today's praise and worship music, but the eloquency in these lyrics, along with its truth, moved me to tears.  And I'm finding that the richness of the words (and the truth they hold) in the older hymns that have survived centuries have a special way of nurturing me, as no modern songs can...like the one I featured in this post.  But I digress...

Have you ever seen a painter's palette?

It is messy, chaotic, seems to have no redeeming value, no meaning, not a place where paint wants to remain...

And yet, we are born into this world as fresh as brand new tubes of oil paint and we want to somehow go from the tube straight onto the canvas..to live a beautifully perfect painting of life.

But, as Pastor Luton illustrated...we cannot take a detour past the pallet...but our journey must go through the pallet.  God wants to squeeze us out and mix light with dark...and to us it looks like random chaos.

C. S. Lewis wrote in a letter dated December 20, 1943 (when England was in the middle of The Blitz, and they had no idea of the outcome):

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's own or real life. The truth is, of course, what one calls interruptions are precisely one's real life. The life God is sending is one day at a time. What one calls one's real life becomes a phantom of one's imagination. This is what I see in moments of insight, but it's hard to see it all the time.
 

I don't know totally what my phantom "real" life was dreamed to be (but some things I would have gladly left out), but the fact is...my real life is the palette.  I've seen the chaos, the sin, the randomness, the heartache, the dark colors, the bright ones, the failures, the struggle to find meaning of it all at times, and how, when I take the paintbrush, I make things an even bigger mess...and some of the chaos is a necessary sign of the Painter's love.

So, what a blessing when God steps in and corrects you!
Mind you, don’t despise the discipline of Almighty God!
True, he wounds, but he also dresses the wound;
the same hand that hurts you, heals you.
From one disaster after another he delivers you;
no matter what the calamity, the evil can’t touch you— Job 5:17-18 (The Message)

God rescues the afflicted by their affliction;
He instructs them by their torment.  Job 36:15-16 (HCSB) 

But often, if I step back, I can see the hand of the Painter...other times His hand is still hidden...

But I trust the Painter...and how He can turn the mess into a masterpiece...

And the meaning of the palette is it is the history, the story behind it all...what it took for the Painter to make me His masterpiece.

And the theme of Hebrews is to persevere on the palette...the Painter knows what He is doing.

Quality time spent so far...and it might just be me...

...but I'm starting to see a little green...

6 Gifts Today (Catching up) ~ Days 9 and 10

First off...Happy Anniversary to me and Edster!  Three years ago today...we had a wonderful worship service...that also served as a wedding.  My dad had died the night before...but, in typical fashion, he left early so he could get the best seat. <smile>

So...back to the Joy Dare...first...three Gifts Praised (do I have to keep it to three?)

• I've been involved in a women's Bible study on James: Mercy Triumphs by Beth Moore.  I praise God for this group...as I've been wanting to be in a Bible study for some time.  Today's homework was on how every good and perfect gift comes from God...so we were focusing on gifts there, as well.  But I praise God for the gift of this study.

• I praise God for the freedom from some major strongholds that were in my life.

• I praise God for slow mornings, with a cup of coffee, a Bible, a journal, and a blog.

Now...three Hard Eucharisteos:  This will take some explanation...

According to Ann Voskamp, eucharisteo means:

Yes, it's all Greek to me, but this is the word that can change everything: eucharisteo—it comes right out of the Gospel of Luke: “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them…” (Luke 22:19 NIV). In the original language, “he gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.”

The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning “grace.” Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Charis. Grace. Eucharisteo. Thanksgiving. Chara. Joy.

Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo; the table of thanksgiving. The holy grail of joy, God set it in the very center of Christianity. The Eucharist is the central symbol of Christianity. Glynn, doesn’t the continual repetition of beginning our week at the table of the Eucharist clearly place the whole of our lives into the context of thanksgiving?

One of Christ’s very last directives He offers to His disciples is to take the bread, the wine, and to remember. Do this in remembrance of Me. Remember and give thanks.
This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, eucharisteo.

Why? Why is remembering and giving thanks the core of the Christ-faith? Because remembering with thanks is what causes us to trust; to really believe. Re-membering, giving thanks, is what makes us a member again of the body of Christ. Re-membering, giving thanks is what puts us back together again in this hurried, broken, fragmented world.

And she also defines the Hard Eucharisteo...or the Hard Thanks ~~

 …take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness. I have glimpsed it: This, the hard eucharisteo. The hard discipline to lean into the ugly and whisper thanks to transfigure it into beauty. The hard discipline to give thanks for all things at all times because He is all good…(Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts)

So here are my three hard Eucharisteos for today...

• Caleb's autism

•  A dead sparrow

• My mother's 12-year disease of vanishing before my eyes...

I may write more specifically about these at another time...but I love this quote from C. S. Lewis:

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

And that, is grace.  Until tomorrow...

Just Be

Early May...Spring clearly here...I walked out onto the deck and ventured to the pond on our vacation rental.  There had been much hard rain overnight and the water was somewhat of a murky brown.  There on the surface, I saw this green, solitary leave...dappled with waterdrops.  Just floating, just being.

How do I just "be"...be still...be a presence...be enough?  So many times my mind is racing so fast and I am caught up in endless activity...and when I am trying to have downtime, I still feel the need to be "doing" something.  How much do I miss because I don't stop?  What lessons do I not learn because I'm occupied?  And how many times do I do fumble the ball and cause damage trying to fix something by inadvertentlyy saying something stupid, rather than just be a presence for someone who is going through a difficult time?

My camera slows me down.  Writing slows me down.  But often, especially in my work world, I am more of a Martha vs. a Mary person.  And even if my body isn't flying around...my thoughts are.  And I know I am not alone.  Even in the quiet, I'm thinking about a to do list or on the weekend thinking about what I need to do on Monday.  My thoughts ruminate and I get stuck.  And then I wonder, "Where is God?"  In essence, wondering why I do not feel close to him.  A perfect passage explains it in I Kings 19 how often God comes in a whisper that we cannot hear because we do not stop to listen...not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

I've come to believe that living fully in the present is a spiritual discipline.  It is my responsibility.  C. S. Lewis  paraphrases in the movie,  Shadowlands, about a painting he had in his nursery:  "We live in the shadowlands. Sun is always shining somewhere else... around a bend in the road... over the brow of a hill."  Eluding to how we are always wanting to be somewhere else other than where we are.  And yet, as a Christian, we are to be as children, just delighting in NOW.  Later in the movie, C. S. Lewis comes across the actual place in the nursery painting and says to his new wife, Joy:

You know, I don't want to be somewhere else anymore.
I'm not waiting for anything new to happen...
not looking around the next corner and over the next hill.
I'm here now. That's enough.

- That's your kind of happy, isn't it? (Joy)

Yes. Yes, it is.

I want to live as God has made me to live...to delight in Him...I'm here now. That's enough.

With gratitude,