Have you ever begun a project thinking you were doing one thing and ended up doing something completely different?  I am in the middle of that kind of experience right now.  I started working on a paper this week.  The paper is for Applied Psychology and the topic is Positive Philosophy.  I knew this would be a fun and interesting paper before I began.  I also knew I would run into some deep challenges as I looked into how a counselor works with people whose lives are affected by traumatic events in their past and how or if the philosophy mentioned can be employed to help bring about healing, resolution, or relief.  All of this is proving true already.  I am finding the books fascinating and the topic of positive philosophy really uplifting for myself.

However, because my priority list is overloaded always and I struggle with what to do right now in this minute, I am always wondering what about that over there; when do I get to it?  I have been feeling this way about some of the writing projects I am working on.  One project is about our adoption experience.  The project tells how we came to that decision, the process of adoption for us, how it affected our four children at that time, and finding and adjusting to the new child.  There is so much more to our story though.  We adopted again. And there was so much stemming from the point of adoption, healing processes for both children, and things that affected who we as a family and individuals became because of the experience of adoption.  I initially gave the journal I am using as my jumping spot to several people connected to our adoption journey as a thank you gift. I gave it to a few friends who adopted also.  I was challenged to turn into something more and I am doing that. But writing it has meant finding the line between privacy and my children's right to their own life and the information that may help someone or bless someone or encourage someone who is adopting or facing some kind difficult issue connected to the adoption or process.  I recently picked up the story and began changing it to a fictional account.  Not sure how that feels yet.  I will probably keep it true.  But mostly I felt like I don't have the time to pour the kind of emotions and thought into the project right now. So I sat it aside.  But I kept thinking about it and wondering how to balance the things I need to include with my children.  I certainly would not include anything they are not ready for me to say. But then, that could be a good portion of the book and is there a way of communicating it without betraying them?

So I have been bouncing it around and my uncle asks me how that story is going.  He has read it for me and encouraged me to get it published.  I told him my concerns in detail and he gave me some valid advice. Let it sit for a time.  Children grow up and their needs and perspectives change as they do.  Good advice.  I can see that even through my own adult life.  Let it sit and the time will come when it is ready, time is full, and the need in others will still be there.  So I am sitting on it and moving on.  Is there something you can set aside until the time is better?  Something that you don't want to let go of but could put on a shelf for a season in order to do other things or wait for a better time?  Trust God to bring it back around when the time is better and he will or he will simply remove it and give you the peace to let it go.

foxes and the vines

Eleven years ago this month we moved into our home.  One of my favorite things about the house when we first came was the amazing, beautiful gardens the previous owner had left me.  She had prepared such wonder and left the fruit of her efforts for me to enjoy.  I love to play in the dirt.  I don't mind getting my hands messy and every winter you will find rows of little seedlings sprouting in my windows with a pure hope that they will be strong and do well under my care.  But I have no green thumb.  Sometimes, I think just to bless me, the Lord gives me a good garden filled with beautiful extra things I have planted.  Much of what's there is simply the continued blessings from Susan's work long before I came into the garden and left my own foot prints in the dirt though.

About year three years in I started to realize that a particular vine in the cutting garden was getting out of hand.  The little purple flowers that covered it in late spring were really lovely.  But it was choking the lilac, the hydrangea, and the forsythia bushes and covering over all the other plants on the ground.  It was obviously a bully. So diligently I pulled and dug and yanked until it was minimal.  The following year I worked even harder to try to eliminate it and the third year I seemed to have finally erased the monster from my garden.  No sign of it for several years now.  Until last week.

On a warm, February day I trotted out to the cutting garden to clean up some of what I had left undone last fall and was amazed to find several very long strands of the variegated vines twisting their way around the poles, pillar, and bushes. I pulled one out and looked at it closely to be sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. There it was five years later creeping its way back into my life.  I pulled a few of the vines out but didn't finish the job.  I know I need to completely clean it off the bushes and other items or it will become a bully once again.  The thing is they are pretty vines with white and green leaves and small purple flowers when in bloom.  They are a beautiful ground cover.  I see it sold in garden centers all the time and I want to warn people, "It will eat up your garden unless you like to fight your plants!"

The thing is I don't think the plant is a wicked or horrible thing.  It's just something that needs to be tended and managed well and if the gardener hasn't time to do those things this particular plant should not be included in the garden scheme.

As I was pulling at the few vines there and deciding whether I would wrestle with them and have a nice ground cover this year or do my best to eradicate the little bullies I thought about Song of Solomon 2:15 which says, "Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that are ruining the vineyards, while our vineyards are in bloom."   Foxes (in my opinion) are beautiful creatures, smart and crafty.  But they will mess up the grapes growing.  And just like my vines popped up unexpectedly foxes will show up in the night when you are not there to guard the fruit.

Foxes - vines, both offered me a picture for those little things that are lovely or enjoyable and even perhaps serve a purpose (like ground covering) but need management and sometimes an outright fight in my daily life.
Those things that add something to the garden of my day but quickly take over my time and energy are my "foxes"  or "vines".  Phone calls used to be my time management nightmare.  I could spend hours on the phone praying with others, socializing, working the schedule to arrange get-togethers, and a million other reasons to be tied to that corded buddy that only allowed me so far and no more.  Now, I don't spend so much time on the phone as I do face book, pinterest, and email.  Some of it is just waste like the time spent on the games, relaxing but not much good otherwise.  Some of it really serves a purpose.  Facebook and email allow me contact with friends and family that I might otherwise never have. Pinterest, my newest time gobbler, has inspired me and stirred my creativity in ways that already have benefited my family and me.  However, they can be little foxes coming in and nipping away at the fruit of my time and leaving me with no time (wasted fruit).  Or like the vine, choking the life out of other areas of life, such as finances (something has to pay for the creativity).

While each of those particular activities have a purpose and are useful for me, they are also potentially threatening to my day, my time, and to what God has called me to do.  If I spend the day or the whole morning whittling away on one of these instead of caring for the family He has given me; or if I am pinning away on Pinterest instead of putting some of that new found creativity to use for my friends and family; if I waste the time reading all 300 or so friends statuses or playing games with my buddies instead of working on the writing that needs my attention I have allowed the pretty little vines to climb all over my day and they will begin to squeeze out those other and more important areas of life.

Perhaps you are not tempted by the things I mentioned.  That's ok and good for you! I bet, though, you have something that pulls at your attention and threatens to run your day for you.  Maybe it's television or talk radio, or noodling around with an instrument, or reading when you should be doing, or doing when you should be reading.  Whatever it is catch the foxes.  Scripture doesn't say kill the foxes, but catch the foxes, capture them and get them out of the vineyard where they don't belong. Manage your garden.  What are your foxes?  Do you have vines trying to bully their way into your day?

Warm me

The cold darkness settles 'round me

I find myself once more questioning

Who Am I?

Am I really called to this?

Do I really belong?

Am I enough for the challenge?

Am I able?

As the darkness presses into my being

Blotting out the memory and the knowledge

Of what I know, of who I am

I feel myself spin

I feel a sense of loss within

But then quietly

Out of the Life that has become mine

Out of the Love that over flows measure

Out of the peace that cannot be taken from me

Even when I've surrendered it.

The quiet peace screams

In the silence of the darkness

And I know that it is not about who I am

But Whose I am

Not where I belong

But to Whom I belong

It's not that I need to be enough

I know Who is enough

And the cold of the darkness recedes into the shadows

As the Light presses in and warms the dark cold corners of me.

I can?

I can do all things through Jesus Christ who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

So does that mean all things?

Are there conditions?

Are there limitations?

How do I receive that strength that is referred to here?

According to James Strong in his Exhaustive Concordance the Greek word "pas" means all, every, all things, every thing. So, all.

I'm not feeling very capable of handling the load I have. I have probably taken on things that don't belong in my schedule. But then there is very little that I can see as extra. Perhaps you can relate to this? There are days when I feel like I just cannot do a good job at anything because I am spread so thin.

And so between laundry, dishes, bookkeeping at the business, running to Va once or twice a month, being a parent of two teenagers (you'd think I could do that blindfolded by now, wouldn't ya' but nah, not a chance), researching and writing papers for my degree, trying to eat healthy and exercise (who knew how much effort and time that takes!), writing my adoption book and writing my novels (yes, I have one about done and 2 others begun), then there's the scrapbooking consultant job I signed onto (creative memories), not to mention husband, adult children, grandchildren, and friends, and of course writing a blog weekly (Stop laughing!, no really, I do try), research for the books, and is there time to relax (well, if you look at my face book activity and my video viewing you would think there's plenty). In all honesty though, I know this is do-able. I just need proper expectations and I need to meet a few conditions and understand the limitations that I see applied and implied in this scripture and connected verses.

Paul wrote this from a jail cell. How is someone hopeful whose writing with prison guards outside the door? Paul was. It was possible for him and for me in my circumstances because my ability to do all things is not based on my ability but on Christ Jesus who gives me strength.

So wait, back up a minute, conditions and limitations? Yes, I believe there is. First Paul makes it clear that this is based on his relationship with Jesus and on his understanding of who he is in him. "through Jesus Christ". Jesus said it also in John 15:5 "He that abideth (to stay in a given place, state, relation, or expectancy, abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stay, tarry) in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (no thing)." If I abide, if I live in that place, state, relation of "him in me and me in him" then I can do all things, and if I don't live in that place, then well, I can do nothing. So the condition is to abide in Christ and the limitation is that if I don't live in that place then this doesn't apply to me.

In another place the psalmist counsels the reader to "delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." But what has that to do with this? Well, the desires of my heart were exactly what is so heavy for me right now. The weight of raising two adopted teenagers when I could be done parenting (in this level anyway) and fully embracing my grammyhood without contest with my mommyhood is one of those things. Teenagers, in case you have never dealt with any, are for many purposes tall, strong, mouthy two year olds. Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh . . . on second thought, no I'm not. But that's a topic for another blog day. The degree is ofcourse the delight of my heart, but right now it is really a weight to try to find the time to research well, and write well, the papers that represent my thoughts and to do them in a timely fashion (which is not happening at all). But they are and have been the prayful, hunger of my heart for a long time. With the blessing comes the responsibility within and staying in that place of delighting my self in Him, realizing that he after all really is the true and deepest desire of my heart and in that I can do nothing apart from him. Why would I want to?

So the condition is to delight in the Lord and the limits are that he (not me providing it for myself or through anyone else) will give (but it does not promise how or when), he will give and in his strength.

Ok, one more. Nehemiah 8:10 "the joy of the Lord is your strength." He said to Israel mourn not, because the people wept when they heard the words of the law. But their leader told them this day was holy so don't weep, the joy of the Lord is your strength. Our days are equally holy before him for we have entered a sabbath rest with the resurrection of Christ and in that holy rest there is a place of joy for the Lord has borne our sorrow and shame and redeem us to be his own, restored us to right relationship, and called us his bride. How could I not find a place of joy in that?

I don't know if I will ever find a way to really balance this life I have. I don't know if I will live one day when I don't forget or neglect something. I don't know if any of this will matter to me in ten years. But I do know that I can do it. Not because I am strong and capable, but because I recognize that I am weak and useless aside from Jesus who delights in giving me strength and ability to do what is beyond me. He knows the deepest desires of my heart and has over and over given me the joy of seeing them come to life. I have living proof of that daily each morning as my kids rise and call me "mom". I have proof of that each time I write a paper and send it in, one more done, one step closer to the dream. And I have it in his Word. What else could I possibly need for encouragement or proof?

"God is so good."

"So glad God was with her."

"The Lord was kind and merciful in this."

Heard a lot of these today and I have said things like them today also. Today my seventeen year old daughter ran into the back of a pick up truck. The truck had stopped to turn left and she saw that. She also saw there was nothing approaching from the other direction. The sun was blinding her and she reached up to lower the visor and looked at it instead of keeping her eyes on the road. When she looked back the truck was still sitting there and she had no time to stop. Slamming her brakes she ran into the back and under, was spun around and ended up in a ditch next to the road. Airbag blew, seat belt held fast, and she was jerked and thrown a bit, but other than some bruising and soreness she will be fine in a few days. Scary stuff for her and for us as her parents.

Take it from me, that's a horrendous call to get at 6:55 am. Rich was just coming out of the bath to dress for work. I was trying to rouse myself out of the comfort of my sheets and blanket. Then the phone rang.

I am thankful that it happened just up the road not more than a 1/2 mile from our home. I am thankful she wore her seat belt and the airbag worked properly. I do believe that God said "this far and no further" and her life was spared because of his mercy. But as I uttered those words earlier today to someone, "God is so good." The thought crossed my mind, "What if she had not lived? What if she was hurt in a way that affected her whole life? What if the man in the truck had been killed? What if. . . . Would God still be good?"

I do not mean to sound ungrateful for His protection. I am deeply thankful today. I am not questioning God's goodness either. I have faced enough as a parent to know that no matter what my eyes see, He is still bigger and knows better.

Yet, I have friends and acquaintances who have lost children to car accidents and other things. And the question begs "Where was God's goodness when those children were lost? Was He any less God? Any less in control? Is He still sovereign, omniscient? Is He still good?"

When a parent has taught and set a good example, but the child chooses to do difficult or even dangerous things, and becomes a run away, an addict, or stays in an abusive relationship - couldn't God have stopped them?

When a child is molested and victimized even though the parents tried to protect and keep her safe, is God any less God because of it?

When a couple adopts a baby and wants to love and protect this child as their own, but finds the child cannot accept their love and will not respond in love toward them. Is God still love? Did He know how hard it would be?

When a daughter does nothing wrong except ride with a friend to school and ends up losing her life, is God still God?

I can tell you with assurance, He is still God 100%. He is still sovereign, and omniscient. He is still merciful, kind, and good.

In fact, it is his mercy, his kindness, and his goodness that will sustain one through such horrors. Death, abuse, addiction, rebellion and the like are the results of living in a sin torn world. They are the chart, the portrait set before us to remind us and call us to the Living God. He is more than good or merciful. He is Life. And apart from him we walk in death.

The psalmists cry over and over throughout the book not only in praise and gladness, but in distress and fear. In Psalm 88 the poet writes, "O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry: For my soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave." (KJV) It moves forward in the same manner crying out to God in dispair. These psalms are meant to comfort us as we relate to the distress and the cry of the heart.

In other places Isaiah tells us that the Lord's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. That even as the sky is higher than us so are the Lord's thoughts and ways higher than ours. Ruth Bell Graham told a beautiful story once about a life picture and how the person could only see the mess of tangles and threads hanging loose throughout the frame. The person was so ashamed that this was the picture her life had created and that the Lord would see such a mess. But when called to stand with Jesus what she saw was the other side of the work and it was a beautiful embroidered picture of Jesus. She had only seen the back side from here. But there next to the Savior she saw what it really looked like to Him.

I don't know how any one carries the deep heart ache of losing a child and not share that burden with Christ. I don't know how others parent without prayful consultations with the Lord. I do know that whether you seek him out or not, He is still sovereign, omniscient, good, kind, merciful, and by the way, gracious. We see the knots and tangles of this life and those things hurt us deeply. But when we trust Him with the pain and take comfort through His peace, His Spirit, only then will we find rest from even the senseless and life altering. That peace lifts us above our situation, above the moment and into His care, and we are able to breathe, to rest, to not need to understand it all but leave it in the Lord's hands without question. And in those moments when nothing else seems right or true or fixable - He is still God, He is still good.

Spring joy

There is something about spring that makes me want to dig in the dirt. I'm not an amazing gardner and my yard is usually the talk of the neighbors, unfortunately not the kind of talk you want to be. But turning over the cool earth on a warm day, dirt under my nails and staining my hands, that somehow always makes me feel better no matter how blue I may feel. I even like the smell of the dirt when it's first turned. It reminds me that with God there is also an opportunity for a new beginning, a fresh start, new mercies. A few minutes of pushing the brown stuff around and feeling the cool dry clumps break between my fingers brings a sense of joy that the new season is really here. I can now plant those seeds and plants with the warning on the package "after danger of all frost" or "after all danger of frost", something like that. The air feels fresh, the sun warm against the skin, and the breeze enough to enjoy the work without much sweat. There is also something about watching the various bulbs and other spring flowers and vegetables lifting their their brand new bodies through the dirt and stretching with all that is in them heavenward. There is a rush of joy, a new song of praise, a child-like exhuberance that fills me when I take up the spade or shovel and head out to the yard for the first time that year. It becomes a dance of worship, not of nature, but of Him. It seems as though the One who offers the day, the dirt, the breeze, the plants to me is breathing a sweet sigh as I kneel down and my heart leaps toward Him in gratitude. I am grateful for this moment, for these plants, this garden, yes. I am even more grateful for the sacrifice He made on my behalf, that these simple pleasures might show me His hand in a glimpse and the smiling faces of the johnny-jump-ups covered with the royal purple remind me that the price was paid by the King. Kneeling in my garden, playing in the dirt I find myself kneeling before the Creator's throne and the glimmer of His glory in the work of His hand set before me often is overwhelming. I have found myself in those moments of worshipful joy with silent tears as His breath becomes real to me and the delight of His presence is touchable. I think with the few minutes I left in the afternoon, I'm going to go out to the throne room to catch a glimpse. Want to join me?

A Curious Plant

I have several spider plants. Most, if not all of them came originally from my mother-in-law's 70th birthday party. Little pots of spider plants and red maples were set around the room as party favors by Dave, her son-in-law. For whatever reasons, the little maples I brought home died. But all of the spiders took off and grew and were transplanted into slightly larger pots and given away, while I kept a few babies to start over with again. One hangs near the front door with a promising batch of little spiders hanging from strong stems in the morning sunshine. Most people coming in don't even notice it, but it salutes those leaving with a wave and a wish for good life. I also have one of those plants (no idea what it's really called) that looks like huge shamrocks. I bought it for St. Patrick's Day and it sits on the window sill turning all the little faces toward the east each morning and filling up the window full of dirt (my seedlings) with blooms of green. Another house plant sits atop the bookshelf that divides the living room space from my little craft area. It's a philademdrum. I call him Dr. Phil because he's just the right kind of green medicine I need when the day is gray and I'm blue. I take him down and pull and fuss with the leaves, tangling and untangling the strands, and cleaning the dust from him. I always feel better after spending a few minutes with the good doctor. I got him from my mom a few years ago and he's lasted longer than most plants for I'm not really a green thumbed person. I just pretend pretty well. And then there's the curious house plant. She is one long vine and has long thick leaves. Not like the leaves of a succulent, but heavy and sturdy. She stays heavy at one end and grows a long stem that causes her to droop and eventually to break off. The leaves get longer and thicker as she matures and the plant produces a pretty little flower at the end, but the flower is short lived and really not the point. It's the plant itself that is the thing to enjoy. The stem stays the same thickness even as it lengthens and the leaves grow both longer and thicker. Eventually the stem cannot support the leaves any longer. She only breaks off once every year or two, and every time it happens I expect that the plant in the pot is dead (it looks dead). I put the flowering end, the leaves, into a jar with a rooting solution, and let the rest sit in its old pot and rest for a few days. It takes me by surprise every time it happens, but it happens every time. After a few days, usually about a week, I will be watering the plants around the old pot and notice tiny fresh leaves on the old stem. It's an amazing sight to see this old stem producing new life, fresh leaves and the old leaves producing new roots in the other jar. My great-aunt, Aunt Reggie (Regina) gave me the plant a few years before she passed away. She truely had a green thumb and could raise anything. The plant reminds me of her, strong and resourceful. It provides me more than just a memory though. It is a picture of my Savior's hand and the plan that God promised He has for me in the book of Isaiah. I have an annoying habit of taking on more and more responsibility until I cannot carry it anymore and something snaps and I lose it all, or something breaks off, falls off, or dies. Lately I have begun to feel that weight, the long thin stem holding and sustaining the heavy thick maturing leaves. A part time job in my husband's business; writing the blog; working toward my degree; writing two books - one about our adoption journey and one based on a biblical character; a new business adventure for me that will hopefully add to our income as well as provide me with an outlet for my creative bug; traveling twice a month to our son's school in VA; a small church related responsibility; all of the regular chores of life such as laundry, making appts., cleaning, paying bills, getting groceries, the normal things everyone does; and bible study, reading, prep for group, and prayer; and oh, yeah, rest. These are a part of what I have hanging from my life plant presently. Some days it is just too much. Now please don't read me wrong. I am not whining. Just stating the facts. Most of the time, I'm having a blast in the midst of all of this. But it really is over-load and I know it. I have taken on each of these responsibilities with prayer and I've tried to have discernment along the way. The plant is beginning to feel heavy with the leaves of the responsibilities as the stem of life grows longer and each leaf, thicker. I realize though, that at one time I would have been looking for the fruit or the flower, I know that right now it's not about that. The "flowers" these areas produce will not in all likelyhood, not be award-winning, stunning in beauty, or productive in nourishment like the flower of the apple tree or berry plants. No, the flowers may be seen by a few, but the plant and its growth is the point. The producing happens in the letting go, separating, starting over. As the old breaks away and responsibilities are completed they won't die off necessarily. Some of the leaves will fall away, but the majority will take new roots elsewhere. I suppose that at some point I will not work part time at the store any longer, someone else will do my job. My blog will end and you will read someone's else's glimpses and glimmers. My degree will be earned (oh, I so hope!) and I will either find where to use it or move into the master's program (doesn't that, in the light of knowing the Master, sound enticing?). The books will be written by God's grace and I will move on to others or not. The new business will grow and provide what I am hoping for or it won't. Our son will graduate and move on to college and we won't take a drive into the heart of VA twice a month any more. The church responsibilities will be passed on to someone new (someone with more administrative skills than I have I hope for their sake.) Each of these will offer a flower, a moment to enjoy them and what they have produced in my life. Their flower isn't the point though. The other responsiblities are just part of the core of the plant where the stem flows from, the piece that continues on even when the rest dies away. That's where the new leaves begin to sprout, out of that life. But in truth, they spring from the roots in the soil. The reading of the Word, the study and preparations of that study, and the time spent in prayer and at His feet are the roots. Yes, those things are the strength of the core plant and are steady no matter how the leaves weigh the stem down. My son gave me a calendar at Christmas that is titled "For Women Who Do Too Much". Hmm. Wonder how he figured that one out? Yesterday someone sent me a devotional that was dealing with over-commitment. I know I am once again in that place and I have a few clues of what I need to let go of. Nothing is really finished and so I believe I need to finish a few things. Perhaps it's this blog. Perhaps it's a few other things. Whatever happens I know that He will produce new life, new leaves in this old stem. The curious thing is that each time the plant has lost it's leaves it starts with one new set. This time there are two. That's never happened before. I'm wondering if it isn't a bit prophetic, and hoping that it is. How about you? Dropped any leaves lately? Any new growth? Are your roots strong? Oh! The soil where the plant lives, abides and receives all that's necessary to sustain life - it's Him. But you knew that.