We are getting ready to go camping tomorrow. We decided that we wanted to get a new propane lantern. We had never had one before and always admired them. So, we bought one today. While reading the instructions, I learned what I think I may have known before. Before the mantle can be used to create light, you have to light a match and let it burn. The silk it is made with burns away and what remains are ceramics and chemicals that burn brightly.
It made me think of my SELF and how often I think I must do things on my own. How often I desire to shine in my own power. It never works. It never will. The only way I can shine is if my self is all used up, then I can get out of the way and let the light of God shine through me.
Lord, make me a mantle.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Rain
That’s about all I have to say today. It rained on Friday – drenching, pouring rain. I woke up from a nap (okay, so don’t be mad at me, I took a nap on Friday) and I heard a strange sound. My sun-dried brain could not quite place it. I went to the bathroom and through the vent in the ceiling, I heard a whooshing sound. Could it be? I went to the front door and opened it and, yes, it was. It really was pouring rain outside. Still hot and now humid, but definitely WET. I walked out and much to my children’s surprise, I just stood there. I had heard that it might rain that day but I had the grain of salt readily available. But there I was holding my hands out and soaking it up just like my sage bushes. Each child ventured out for a moment only to scream with glee when the rain hit them and run back inside. I stood out there for a few minutes and then it really started to slap me, so I scooted on in (you don’t want your neighbors to think you are a COMPLETE fool). No sooner had I stepped inside than my phone rang and it was my husband, “Did you know it was raining?”
I didn’t know I had missed it so much.
I love the way the earth smells and I love the way the green of the trees is never greener than when it is set against a blue-black sky. I love the way the water in the air gives everything around me an intense, cool hue.
Some people tell me that if I lived somewhere where it rained all the time I would tire of it. Perhaps that is true. I know that I got tired of the rain coming UP into my umbrella when I walked the streets of Boston as a student (but that had more to do with wind than rain) and I remember kind of being tired of being WET all the time. But I do remember the Charles River after a rain and that soaky gray of the buildings and that even there in the middle of a city like that, the earth could still smell a little newer.
But I will say there is no rain like Southwest rain, where you can actually watch a storm come down a valley toward you, where you can get so high up on a mountain you can watch the rain from above, where you can see the biggest bluest blackest clouds ever, and where you can even watch rainfall that never makes it all the way to the ground.
Thank you, Lord, for the sweet simple joy of rain on a dry land.
I didn’t know I had missed it so much.
I love the way the earth smells and I love the way the green of the trees is never greener than when it is set against a blue-black sky. I love the way the water in the air gives everything around me an intense, cool hue.
Some people tell me that if I lived somewhere where it rained all the time I would tire of it. Perhaps that is true. I know that I got tired of the rain coming UP into my umbrella when I walked the streets of Boston as a student (but that had more to do with wind than rain) and I remember kind of being tired of being WET all the time. But I do remember the Charles River after a rain and that soaky gray of the buildings and that even there in the middle of a city like that, the earth could still smell a little newer.
But I will say there is no rain like Southwest rain, where you can actually watch a storm come down a valley toward you, where you can get so high up on a mountain you can watch the rain from above, where you can see the biggest bluest blackest clouds ever, and where you can even watch rainfall that never makes it all the way to the ground.
Thank you, Lord, for the sweet simple joy of rain on a dry land.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Whom Do You Love?
What a great thing it is to have people around you that you love. Family. Friends, even celebrities that we can enjoy through music and television. I have one friend that really makes me laugh, one that would be here right *now* if I asked, one that teaches me to be content, one that teaches me to pray, one who will always be there through time and distance, one that needs me, one that gets all my jokes, one from whom I get to steal jokes (right about now, you’re reading this and wondering which one you are... aren’t you??).
We have family around us attached to us through some unseen cords, sometimes against our will, yet the truth of blood always surfaces. We have that strange relationship of spouse, which is a difficult combination of the same and yet not the same.
Today when I dropped my husband off at work after having lunch together, I watched him walk away and realized that though we want to be as close as possible to people around us, though we think we have so many loved ones surrounding us, ultimately, we are alone in our own skins. We come together with a friend and we, say, see a movie or get a bite to eat. We love it, we relish the time together, we laugh, we tell stories that illuminate who we are. And yet at the end of it all, we walk away, back to our lives. Even with our spouses, we can’t know and be everything all the time to each other. At some point in every day we walk away, even if it is just location.
I have always struggled with the desire to be close to people, closer than I should, closer than there was time for, and these thoughts left me feeling so abjectly alone. And then there was a tap on my shoulder.
And Jesus whispered in my ear – I will never walk away.
I suddenly understood (and I’m shocked it took me this long) why no one else can fill me up, why no one should. It is so I will always need Him and He will be Enough.
We have family around us attached to us through some unseen cords, sometimes against our will, yet the truth of blood always surfaces. We have that strange relationship of spouse, which is a difficult combination of the same and yet not the same.
Today when I dropped my husband off at work after having lunch together, I watched him walk away and realized that though we want to be as close as possible to people around us, though we think we have so many loved ones surrounding us, ultimately, we are alone in our own skins. We come together with a friend and we, say, see a movie or get a bite to eat. We love it, we relish the time together, we laugh, we tell stories that illuminate who we are. And yet at the end of it all, we walk away, back to our lives. Even with our spouses, we can’t know and be everything all the time to each other. At some point in every day we walk away, even if it is just location.
I have always struggled with the desire to be close to people, closer than I should, closer than there was time for, and these thoughts left me feeling so abjectly alone. And then there was a tap on my shoulder.
And Jesus whispered in my ear – I will never walk away.
I suddenly understood (and I’m shocked it took me this long) why no one else can fill me up, why no one should. It is so I will always need Him and He will be Enough.
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