My eyes filled up with tears. Maybe I was just tired or maybe it was the message so many shared that day. I do know and agree with the Frederick Buechner quote: “Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling the secret of who you are, but more often than not of the mystery of where you have come from and are summoning you to where you should go next.”So I paid attention to what they said: “I am not good enough.”“I am never enough.”“I don’t deserve God’s love.”I shook my head along with the knowing I too struggling with that false belief. We need to hear a new message. Perhaps that is why I like Holly Gerth’s new book, You’re Already Amazing – Embracing Who You Are, Becoming All God Created You to Be. What a phrase to ponder. What intrigued me though, was the front cover of the book and how the title emphasized the word ALREADY. Just think how our lives would change if we really lived as if we … [Read more...]
The Special Ks
On Tuesdays this year I have been having fun participating in Patty Wysong’s blog meme where once a week bloggers posted on the letter of the week. Check out the details here. It is called A2Z: Take 2. A2Z as she challenges bloggers to write a post each week going through the alphabet. This week’s letter is K and the letter K starts one particular word that is number one in my heart: well that is not entirely true: Three words to be exact.KylaKorbin KastinMeet my grandKids – three K’s and as our good friend Don nicknamed them: The Special KsKyla will be three in June and is a bubbling full of life toddler. She has been featured on this blog right after she was born and also several times when just watching her taught me spiritual lessons. Here what I wrote the day Kyla was born about God’s whoosh sweeping into our hearts.The wonder and curiosity of little ones teaches us also. So many lessons such as celebrating our firsts in life, tooKorbin and Kastin were born July 17. We get … [Read more...]
God’s Handiwork – Lectio Divina
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)God’s handiworkCreator God, I marvel at the work of Your hands.I gazed at Your twinkling Venus and bright Saturn in perfect alignment this week in the nighttime sky. Your ongoing design work amazes me.You wave Your hand and the purple and yellow crocuses emerge. I feel renewed with Spring’s resurrection.I hear of friend’s granddaughter’s birth and know You and I both celebrate new life.When I dare to ask, “Who am I, Lord?” This astonishing verse responds:“You are My handiwork. My masterpiece.”Why do I continue to dismiss that belief? Doubt You really mean it? Shrug off this wonderful news?My true identify remains in Your hands, carefully and lovingly created by the Sacred Sculptor.God Himself, the Divine Designer, carved His name in my heart and left His fingerprints all over my soul.God marks me with a permanent label clearly stating: Created by the … [Read more...]
An Irish Blessing – Quote of the Week
Image via WikipediaMay the road rise to meet you.May the wind be always at your back.May the sun shine warm upon your face.And rains fall soft upon your fields.And until we meet again,May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.Irish Blessing … [Read more...]
The Tender Gaze of God – a Silent Retreat Experience
How do you describe time spent in the presence of God? First I want to thank many of you who held me in prayer when I went to the four-day silent retreat last week. I encourage you if you have never gone on retreat, whether a silent one or one filled with life-giving presentations, to try this spiritual practice. You will receive priceless nourishment for your journey in life.Even as a writer, I have difficulty finding the words to illustrate these precious quiet days with God. So I will borrow a phrase from Anthony de Mello:Look at God…looking at you… and smiling.I experienced being enfolded in the hands of God and beheld in His tender, loving, and unfailing gaze.I found this statuette and took multiple photos of this father and baby since they best represent how I felt.“You are precious in my eyes. I honor you and love you." Isaiah 43:4Often at the beginning of a retreat, the director will suggest some Bible verses that may guide us on our weekend. As soon as Susan mentioned Hagar, I … [Read more...]
Journaling our Journey
Patty Wysong has created a fun meme where once a week bloggers posted on the letter of the week. Check out the details here. It is called A2Z: Take 2. A2Z as she challenges bloggers to write a post each week going through the alphabet. Take 2 since this is the second time she has used this meme. Anyone can join in and you don’t have to always participate. This week’s letter is JJ = Journaling our JourneyTEN! I counted ten people continually carrying journals. More than one third of the people on the silent retreat with me last weekend carried some form of journalwith them. Blank notebooks, plain or with fancy covers, spiral notebooks, sheets of loose papers – many scribbling, capturing precious moments and lessons learned in sacred stillness of the retreat.I watch them. Prayfully they held their journals in the chapel. Slowly they recorded thoughts, prayers, verses, and experiences within these treasured pages in the reflection room. I am sure many of them wiped tears from those … [Read more...]
God’s Foolishness
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 1 Corinthians 1: 25Foolishness of God The foolishness of God? Lord what does that mean? Is it irreverent to think of You, as foolish?Yet the verse tells me Your foolishness is wiser than any human wisdom.How many times in my life have I asked You for answers? For guidance? For wisdom?I should have been asking You to shower me with Your foolishness!Pour out upon us Your upside-down view of how we should live.I marvel at the strange idea of God coming to earth as a baby, the lessons and messages Jesus, Your son, modeled for us with His life, and the incredible feat of Easter morning conquering death forever.Ages ago nothing existed until You exploded creation and set Your plan in motion. Did the angels dance with glee, celebrating Your foolishness that day, Lord? I know I am not strong enough, even on my best days, to follow You completely. I need You, Lord.Your foolishness … [Read more...]
Trust the Slow Work of God – Quote by Teilhard de Chardin
Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability— and that it may take a very long time.And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually—let them grow; let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ … [Read more...]