Quiet

You know....sometimes in life it is just quiet. There is no breaking story news, no brilliant idea, no breathtaking views, just life. Life that goes on minute by minute with some good days, some bad, and some categorized as meh days. There are no awe inspiring statements but rather just a life lived to serve. Quiet.. I do not mind (it just doesn't give to much to write about), most days.

Quiet when you are home alone and only the refrigerator is running in the background. Quiet when everyone else has gone to bed but you are lying awake in your own, quiet when you are hand-stitching on the quilt. Quiet give me time to think, time to reflect, and time to pray. It is a time when I am completely relaxed. 

But quiet can also be disconcerting, uncomfortable. I have found the quiet times in life can often be times where my patience is stretched for wait, not yet, and no seem to be the answers to the many questions that I have for God. So what can I do...I trust. Trust that God has got my back. Trust that he will and currently is working out my story. Trust that even when the world throws punches to the face, I am safe. Trust after picking myself off the ground, I have the strength to continue. I am loved. I am a child of God. So...I will trust. I will wait. I will be quiet. But I will not back down.

Beauty All Around

Inside and Out

Imagine this...quick short footsteps running down the hall toward a mother sitting in a chair with her back turned to the child. The footsteps slow and then stop in confusion when Mom can not be found. Then the mother calls out "Lisa, I'm right here." The child once again races forward, and dives into Mom's lap for the comfort, peace, and security she knows she will always find there. Meanwhile, Mom never once turned around or looked up as the footsteps approached the room where she was seated. She knew which child was looking for her, knew the sound of their approaching footsteps.

This memory kept me thinking, what about God? Does he distinguish between all his children's different ways of approaching him? Can he instantly tell that it is me coming to talk, just the way moms know the exact cry, laugh, voice, and footsteps of their children?  Does God know the sound of my laugh, heart breaking into pieces, my footsteps to his door? I think so.

After all, He reminds us over and over in his word how loved and valuable we are to Him. In Matthew 10:29-30 it says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; your are worth more than many sparrows." 

It is so incredible to know that my God knows me inside and out and yet He loves me! He hears me and knows just what I need as I approach his throne, and he welcomes me with his loving arms...

Psalm 139:1-18

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Quilt of Life

The Patchwork Quilt

“Life isn’t given to us all of a piece,
It’s more like a patchwork quilt
Each hour and minute a patch to fit in
To the pattern that’s being built.

With some patches light — and some patches dark
And some that seem ever so dull
But if we were given to set some apart,
We’d hardly know which to cull.

For it takes the dark patches to set off the light,
And the dull to show up the gay
And, somehow, the pattern just wouldn’t be right
If we took any part away.

No, life isn’t given us all of a piece,
But in patches of hours to use,
That each can work out his pattern of life
To whatever design he might choose.”

Helen Lowrie Marshall

Quilting is something that my grandma taught me to love. The putting together of scraps, pieces that many just throw away, to make something with a pattern, something beautiful. And the more I think about it, the more I see God as a master quilter. 

Imagine each and every piece in a quilt is a situation, a memory, a part of a life. There are bright colors and dull colors, happy prints, prints of different seasons, dreary prints. There are the ugly pieces, the beautiful pieces, and the mediocre pieces. Yet every one is necessary to the quilt. The dark and light, happy and sad, dull and extravagant make way into a pattern that only the quilter can recognize. A pattern that is only there because of the contrast in the differences in the fabrics.

Many times while suck in the moment of the ugly of life, it is hard to see why this particular situation needs to be apart of my life quilt, an the temptation arises to ask "why me?". I think about the different quilts I have made. I think about all of the original pieces of fabric that I choose, not because of beauty or design but because of how I thought they would look in the finished quilted design. In picking out the scraps to use for the quilt, the finished pattern is how I make choices for color and design. 

I know that God can take all of my pieces of life and make them not just into the pile of scraps that I currently possess, but into a masterpiece of His design when I choose to hand Him every situation. The times of joy, tears, peace, sadness, excitement, anticipation, fear, love, fellowship, and many more are unscrambled in His artistic hands and placed into the pattern that he has picked out for me and is uniquely mine.  

Beauty All Around

Exhist or Live

While reading a book today, I stumbled upon another quote that made me think....

"Loss is part of life. Whether it happens unexpectedly, 

or later in life with disease or old age. It's inevitable. 

The best we can do is consider each day a gift and

embrace it fully. Otherwise, we exist rather than live." 

                                                 -Irene Hannon

Yes, death is painful and not fun for the ones who are left behind, but yet...

The person who has gone to heaven does not want to come back. They are having the time of their life and doing what they were made to do...praise.

Time continues on. Whether you sit in bed all day or are doing chore after chore, time continues on at the same rate for all of us on Earth. 

We will see them again. Why wallow in your sadness on Earth when you know that you will see them again someday? Yes, you will miss them, but this is not the end. We have a story that goes beyond the glimpse of this time on Earth.

God's plan for you is not complete yet. I know that my dad was received into heaven with the words "well done good and faithful servant." I need to strive to follow God's will for my life so that I can also be greeted with those wonderful words.

So I choose to laugh, live, love, care, show compassion and patience, and continue searching for God's next step for my life because it is not finished yet and I am determined to "fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith." I will choose to live rather than just exist.

Enough for a Day

While reading my devotions for the day, I stumbled across a verse that started me thinking. 

"Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down

 bread from heaven for you. The people are 

to go our each day and gather enough 

for that day."

                                           -Exodus 16:4

It reminded me of this past year, starting right after Dad's cancer diagnosis. We had to....no choice in the matter.... we had to take everything one day at a time. It simply was too overwhelming to try and look at the whole picture or the ramifications of what could, or could not, happen. In that moment I had enough for then and that was all I learned to need. Enough. We, as a family, didn't need to think into the future. We needed to focus on the time we had in that day to enjoy, live, love, laugh, and breathe. Looking into the future spoiled all the peace of the moment. 

It is not that we ignored what might be coming or turned a blind eye to the changes, but rather we would choose to trust. Trust God to give us what we need when the future becomes the present. Trust God for peace, trust him for love, trust him for comfort, trust him to work it out according to his perfect will, trust him with the plan for my life, my dad's life, and my family. 

Yet the hardest, most mind boggling part of this story it the trust the Israelites had to place in God. They were instructed not to gather more than what they needed for the day, and the few that did ended up regretting it the next day. Rather, they needed to trust that God would provide one day at a time. I can only imagine what the first few days felt like...so hungry and enjoying what God has blessed you with, but non-stop question like "will we receive manna again tomorrow?" keep invading your thoughts. Over time I am sure that it got easier, just as my trust for enough to deal with the day ahead became easier as time went on and God proved himself faithful.

It is interesting the peace and freedom I found in living day to day. There were no long term plans made because things could change on a dime and I needed to be available to drop everything and be there. There were no long vacations or times when I would go without seeing my brothers, sister, and parents, rather we had family dinners, attended sporting events together, supported each other, and loved on one another. I am curious what the world would be like if more individuals decided to focus on the day to day, trusting in God for the future rather than micromanaging our schedules with plans for 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, and 5+ years from now. Lives and schedules can change drastically within the space of a moment.
 
Each day God gave me, and us as a family, enough strength, peace and reassurance for that day. No more and no less. God was faithful and He didn't let me down. Nor do I think that he ever will. So for today....I have enough.

Beauty All Around

Hugs

Hugs have been on my mind over the last several days. 5 weeks ago I lost my dad after his year long battle with cancer. While I know that he is in heaven having the time of his life, I do miss him here on earth. Normal, right? Well, the things that I miss the most are his hugs. We are a very affectionate family, so there are still a lot of hugs being past around, but I have found there is something special in a dad's hug that can not be found in ones from my sister, mom, or even my big younger brothers.

Dad's hugs were packed with unconditional love, acceptance, support, joy, comfort when I am not feeling well, and pride in me, his little girl. When his arms surrounded me, all was going to work out all right. I knew that he cared. I knew that he would fix it if it was at all possible. I knew that he loved me. I knew that it was okay to be who I am. I knew that I could relax. I am so thankful to have received so many hugs in my 22 years of life because I know that many little girls do not receive any of those emotion-packed wonderful hugs from their fathers. My heart bleeds for them and what they are missing.

God, my heavenly Father, knew just what he was doing when he created dads and little girls who needed the physical reassurance of a hug from their earthly father, and I thank Him for giving me the father that I had.

Prompted thoughts

This weekend was a marvelous time spent with out of town (and in town) friends and thought provoking conversations. While we all have graduated from the same college, we ended up in such different places in life just over a year later. Some are married, some are single, some dating, some engaged. Some working in places of employment directly related to what was studied in college, some indirect, and some not at all. The interesting thing is how we all still need each other. We need to keep reminding one another that life is difficult, it doesn't always turn out the way you planned. We need to celebrate with one another for achievements that have been awarded. We need to get excited for each other when someone takes a step toward a dream. We need to remind each other to relax and enjoy the sunshine. We need to be there for one another.

I think that this is how God created us to exist, in a community. Today the world applauds everyone that is self sufficient and has no need for other individuals in their life but I beg to differ. We need that moral support, accountability, and voice of reason to help make decisions when the going gets tough. My friends help to keep my perspective in life.

Though one may be overpowered,
    two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken

-Ecclesiastes 4:12

 I am so thankful for these friends that God has placed in my life. What a blessing.

"Pockets of Grace"

I wish that I could say that I was clever enough to come up with the title "Pockets of Grace" myself, but alas...I did not. "Pockets of Grace" was a quote that I stumbled upon while enjoying a day off of work reading a book by Robin Jones Gunn. Let me give you a little bit more of the contents that started me thinking...

"She used to call unexplainable circumstances such as your experience with your car 'pockets of grace.' We don't control them. We just fall into them, and God catches us and directs us in ways we never imagined."

So how sweet is that! And how true. God catches us, turns our view around, and sends into new adventures. Adventures that we would have never put our-self on. Adventures that are terrifying, thrilling, captivating, and perfect for what we needed in that moment. We have the coolest God.

I have experienced many of these 'pockets of grace' myself. While I am in the middle of a life-changing or really difficult situation it is really easy for my mind to slip into the worry and stress mode, but time passes and I look back, God's fingerprints are everywhere. It is so obvious that I just fell into a pocket of grace and God changed a few circumstances to work it all out like He intended. For His good. For things falling into place seconds, minutes, or days before I need them. For a year following college that I NEVER would have expected or even imagined in the craziest dreams, but to be at peace and full rest in where I am.

To be real

Writing and blogging is intimidating. To think that people are out there reading your work, while you sit desperately wanting to be accepted, come up with something smart, witty or funny. It is an unmasking of sorts, exposing a piece of yourself to the world. What if there is a huge mistake or I just cant do it? 

As I write this, I think how this parallels life. We are forced (at times) to be real with others. To show them a piece of ourselves that we normally keep hidden. Is it because we are ashamed of this part of us? I don't think so. I know that a lot of times for me, it is a part of myself that could be easily hurt. A part that doesn't have as much armor and thick skin as other subjects. So in order not to be hurt or scarred by others thoughtless comments or actions, this part of myself stays hidden, tucked just beneath the surface.

So what would the world look like if we were honest and vulnerable all the time? Maybe we would not be so quick to judge others when we see exactly how many people deal with the same insecurities we have. Maybe we would be more loving. Maybe we would not be so quick to anger. Maybe we could live a little more peacefully. Maybe we would be happier. Maybe our life would be a little more like Christ.

Time to be real. Time to take a chance.