Monthly Archives: January 2008

Posted on

One Day at a Time


"If God gives such
attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even
seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his
best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not
be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving.
People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things,
but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality,
God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll
find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

"Give
your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get
worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you
deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." — Matt 6:30-34

463245_17834269Sometimes life just gets away from me. Some of those times I feel like I’m trying to catch a bus that’s already pulling away from the curb. But other times, like this week, I feel like I’m on a roller-coaster. I’m on the ride — not running beside trying to get on — which is good, but the thing is going so fast and looping around so much I can’t focus on anything. Not so good. And even though I’m securely strapped in, I feel very much like I’m going to fall out. Or at least lose everything in my pockets.

Know what I mean?

I used to think the phrase from which I pulled the title of this post was trite and irrelevant. How wrong I was! It’s in times like this week, with work and school and church and my own emotional and spiritual healing and recovery  all clamoring for attention — all needing my focus, my time, my energy — that I learn that the only way I can get through and still maintain my sanity is to live one day at a time. And sometimes it’s one hour at a time; one minute at a time; one second at a time—-trusting God to take care of the minutes, hours, days, even months, to come because I just cannot think that far ahead without going crazy with fear.

It’s hard to surrender control of my future to God. I want to be the Master of My Own Destiny! The Queen of my own Domain! Yet when I look back over my life, I realize that I’m not such a good Master, and an even worse queen (unless we’re talking Drama!); and the Destiny and Domains I chose just aren’t all that. Even so, I struggle with letting go.

I know it’s illusion. I know I can’t really control my destiny or my domain. Oh sure, I can make my plans, and spin my webs, and work-work-work like a dog to make it all work out the way I want. But in then end, it’s all for naught. I cannot control the world, the economy, the government, my church, my friends, my bosses, my co-workers or the dorks on the road. I cannot control anything but me: my responses, my actions, my words, and my thoughts. I cannot control the wind or which way it blows. I can only adjust my sails to catch as much of it as I can and point my boat in the general direction I want to go.

Yet I try. So hard sometimes.

How do I steep my life in God-reality,
God-initiative, God-provisions? How to I surrender control of things I’m so used to blindly insisting I have control over? How do I give my entire attention to what God is doing right now when so many other things are clamoring for my attention? The only way I know how is to surrender one thing at a time and live one day at a time, one minute at a time.

How are you?

Posted on

My Wish For 2008

Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of
Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are
cut off.’  Therefore
prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my
people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I
will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.
I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in
your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I
have done it, declares the LORD.’ " Ezekiel 37:11-14

Nearly ten years ago this was the promise God made to me. And 1999 turned out to be the first year I truly knew I was Alive; really Alive, living the Abundant Life. Funny how the Abundant Life more often than not is hard and painful and messy and… gritty. But in the midst of all that it is so good!

Sometimes I feel like I need
To shake myself
To wake myself
I feel like I’m just sleepwalkin’
Through my life
Its like I’m swimming through
An ocean of emotion
But still somehow slowly
Goin’ numb inside
I don’t like who I’m becomin’
I know I’ve gotta do somethin’
Before my life passes right by

As I drove home on New Year’s Day evening from 10 glorious days at my sister’s home, one of my favorite songs came on my iPod: Josh Gracin’s "I Want To Live" and I found myself reflecting back on that promise God gave me in ’98 and once again crying out to Him with the chorus of Gracin’s song:


I want to cry like the rain
Cry like the rain
Shine like sun on a beautiful mornin’
Sing to the heavens like the church bells ringin’
Fight to the devil and go down swingin’
Fly like a bird,roll like a stone
Love like I ain’t afraid to be alone
Take everything that this world has to give
I want to live

Love like I ain’t afraid to be alone. Dang. That. Is. It. That is what I want. I’m so afraid to be alone — still! even now when Jesus has proved so faithful — that I stand at a distance rather than risk investing in new friendships, new relationships with people I may end up falling in love with (and I’m not talking romance here). Haven’t you ever fallen in love with a dear friend (and isn’t that what makes a dear friend "dear"?)? Where you just love everything about them, even the annoying crap? I’ve had maybe a handful of those kinds of friends in my lifetime. Anne of Green Gables called them "bosom friends". I long for one. Yet I fear it too. What if they leave me? What if they die? Then I’ll be alone again. I don’t know if I can handle the pain of death or abandonment again…. Yet my heart yearns for more. I was made for more. I was made for community.

Sometimes I wonder
Why I work so hard to guard my heart
Till I hardly feel anything at all
I’ve spent my whole life building up this ivory tower
And now that I’m in it, I keep wishing it would fall
So I could feel the ground beneath me
Really taste the air I’m breathin’
And know that I’m alive

The cry of my soul is stronger than my fear, it seems. Once again I find myself clinging to God’s promise to Israel, to me, to breathe Life into me that I might Live. Have you ever felt that way? Perhaps not. But for me, there is no going back. I’ve come too far into God’s amazing Abundant Life to let my fears stop me now. So here it is. My wish, my hope, my resolve for 2008. I will pester God until He relents. I want His breath in me. I want Him to  continue to breathe Life into my dry bones so that I will Live an know that God has done it.

I want to cry like the rain
Cry like the rain
Shine like sun on a beautiful mornin’
Sing to the heavens like the church bells ringin’
Fight to the devil and go down swingin’
Fly like a bird,roll like a stone
Love like I ain’t afraid to be alone
Take everything that this world has to give
I want to live


Somethin deep inside
Keeps sayin’
Life is like a vapor
It’s gone in just a twinklin’ of an eye

Lest you think God doesn’t answer, won’t answer, let me tell you that within a few hours of my prayer on highway 74 in North Carolina, I had another real taste of Abundant Living on the 40 (I-40 for all you non-Californians) on the Cumberland Plateau. As I left Knoxville and headed up the mountains it started snow. Beautiful, big dancing flakes swirling in the wind. I was like a little kid on Christmas morning; I love snow!!

Within a few miles there was a dusting of snow everywhere and it continued to fall. Then it fell harder and harder. I lost sight of the lines on the road and even lost sight of everything in front of me altogether a few times. I’ve never driven in snow before, so to say that I was scared out of my mind would be a gross understatement. I was convinced if I stayed on the road I would die, or worse, crash my car. And if I pulled off the road my car would be buried in snow and I’d freeze to death. I watch Lifetime, I know these things happen!

I pulled off the road and called my brother-in-law who calmly talked me down off my emotional ledge, and through how to drive in that kind of mesmerizing, nerve-racking weather. I got back on the road and drove on. I was in constant prayer for over an hour — mainly begging God, "Please make it stop!! You control the weather. You can make it stop!"

After over an hour of following a 16-wheeler and slowly making my way across the Plateau, the snow finally tapered off and stopped. Just in time to head down the mountains into the heart of Middle Tennessee. I had made it! And without wrecking my car!! 🙂

But can I tell you? I knew I was Alive. All the way across that Plateau I knew. Now, I don’t need to live every day in that kind of hyper-alertness to know I’m alive — and I reminded God of that as I put the car back in cruise at 70mph and we made our way into Nashville. But it’s in times like that, coming through it with God and with the help of another, that can reconnect with reality, that God has breathed Life in me already; that sinew and muscle and skin is being added to my dry bones every moment of every day. And God is doing it. All I have to do is breathe it in, take the hands of those around me, and Live.

I want to cry like the rain
Cry like the rain
Shine like sun on a beautiful mornin’
Sing to the heavens like the church bells ringin’
Fight to the devil and go down swingin’
Fly like a bird,roll like a stone
Love like I aint afraid to be alone
Take everything that this world has to give
I want to live
I want to take every
Breath I can get 
I want to live!

Happy New Year! May 2008 be filled with joy, adventure, and God’s sweet, gritty Abundant Life.

Posted on

A Book List Tag

Stacked_books2
It’s not even mid-January and I’ve been tagged already to do a meme of sorts. Debbie Kaufman, who tagged me, listed some amazing books, as did Emily Hunter McGowin (tagged by Debbie too) and Kevin Bussey (the perpetrator of all this book-love tagging). So check out their books too. I love seeing how each one has a list that, to me, reflects their personality as well as their heart.

So here’s my little list. I tried to include links to Amazon.com where available so you can add all this reading goodness to your own library. 🙂

One book that changed your life: I have two I want to mention. The Allure of Hope: God’s Pursuit of a Woman’s Heart by Jan Meyers, and The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. Both of these radically altered how I saw myself through God’s eyes and helped me really connect to God’s passionate pursuit of me.

One book you have read more than once: Again, two (more, really): Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin and all the Harry Potter books in the series. Both are sooooo much better than the movies (A&E’s miniseries of P&P was the best filmed version, in my opinion) and worth reading again and again and again…

One book you would want on a desert Island: It’s going to sound really corny, but if I only got one book it would be the Bible. I cannot think of any other book that doesn’t get old, never runs out of surprises, and so consistently challenges, comforts, encourages and matures me. Now, if I get another book besides the Bible, I’d probably want one of Shel Silverstein’s books.

Two books that made you laugh: The First Assistant by Clare Naylor & Mimi Hare, and I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being A Woman by Nora Ephron. The first had me howling because I’ve lived that life of Hollywood assistant and I know the crazy drama she writes about. And the second had me howling because, well, it’s Nora Ephron. Plus, it’s all about the stuff about women and aging I’m starting to understand in an all too familiar way thankyouverymuch.

One book that made you cry: Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning. Powerful stuff.

One book you wish you’d written: the one I haven’t written yet, but will one day.

One book that you wish had never been written: I have two. The Prayer of Jabez, and Every Woman’s Battle. Both of these really bother me. The first one just seems to be an affront to God’s constant grace upon us. Instead of books on how to pray for more blessings — we are already blessed beyond measure, but most people ignore this reality — what we really need are books on seeing the abundant blessings we already have and asking God to help us see how we can bless others with the blessings He’s given us. As for "Every Woman’s Battle," I felt it was a one-dimensional, oversimplified look at the three-dimensional, complex issues women, especially those in their 20s and 30s, deal with in the 21st century when it comes to sex and sexuality. I fear it did more harm than good.Books

Two books you are currently reading: Just two? I am currently reading four, in a rotation
kinda thing: Abba’s Child, TrueFaced, The Anatomy of Peace, and No Stones.

One book you’ve been meaning to read: Widow of The South has been sitting on my nightstand for forever, patiently waiting for its turn to be read.

Now tag five or so people: Hmmm, some I’d tag have already been hit so I’ll just do three. Marti (she tagged me a couple of months ago and while I still owe her a post, I also owe her a "tag-your it!" back), Larry, and Joe (if you haven’t already been hit).