He said I felt like a sledgehammer in his chest
He said my steel magnolia eyes are the place he found rest
He said he never met a girl life me before or since
He said life without me made no sense
And the music played and the song was sung.
Love will grow over barriers and around obstacles still blooming and still fragrant. Love is having the strength to stay. Love is a wild and furious risk, a pouring out of all that one can from that cup and drink it. Love is rich and poor. Love is sickness and health. Love is a verb, an action word. Nothing about love is passive. Love cannot be manipulated. Love. Risks. Everything. The Holy God is Love’s name…ponder this, ponder Him on this busy Tuesday of your life. Love changes everything!
The knockout punch…
I have eaten nothing in three days.
The pain in my chest is a slow agony.
I have no memory of warmth with others of my kind.
Although fading, my longing drives my soul forward.
A primal memory of Joy beats like a captured bird in my brain.
Yet somehow I know Him and see the full Glory of God.
So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me. Genesis 16:13
Camellias are blooming stout and ruffled in oh so many rosy shades of pinks!
Azalea bushes lay a thick carpet for Gulf summer heat and rain.
The golden-green sea oats weave and spin the island’s core in an endless ballet.
All the while, the Faithful Morning Glories, pink and yellow, vine along the sand like a hodgepodge of holiday lights.
The salt sits thick upon my skin and hair.
I am baptized in a wave and the horizon melts into carnival colors of pulled taffy in my Watercolor Garden.
These high school halls are not hallowed halls but they are unsurpassed in the scheme of life lessons….Truth and Fiction …
Remember that boy with the unfortunate eyebrows hurrying down the hall as if afraid or embarrassed? He was.
Remember that girl passing a note to her “steady” guy declaring her undying devotion because he said he “loved” her? He did not.
Remember when you thought a certain friend’s family seemed so perfect? They were not.
The stereo- types still linger in these tales of fiction. Fifty years later and I can name them all by heart.
We all wanted to be (well most of us) to be prettier, cuter, thinner, funnier, taller, shorter, darker, lighter, a better singer, a better dancer, the beauty queen, the sports star, the math genius, or the valedictorian.
I guess it is like the “Breakfast Club” and the “Big Chill” movie all rolled up together. (we did have the best music though). I always felt like the adults in my days of high school tried to minimize the harshness of the unspoken boundaries. There are many people that I admired from afar and would have like to have known better but there was also a nagging burden of exposure.
Ends up that about ninety-nine percent of High School Fiction left some of us hurt and even wounded and that is where reality steps in. No, we had not yet let our tender souls relax in the discovery zone of finding there is no such thing as perfect. How could we know that what lay ahead would require a lot more truth and a little less comparison?
Just saying…
Photo by Rakicevic Nend
I was in your Yesterday.
I used up a lifetime there.
Unworldly hearts beating away,
But then nobody cared.
At least it seemed that way.
I was in your Yesterday.
I believed in fairy tales too.
I thought there was an evermore,
but I left your Yesterday.
My friend is dying. We have been the truest of friends over fifty years. My smart, (I am talking qualifies for Mensa smart), funny, and oh so beautiful friend. We do not speak of dying much. We have long since beaten that “dead horse” (pun intended) a while ago. The buckets of tears, prayers, questions, meeting new Doctors, holding it together for family members…yes, we do all of that together because we must.
My friend is not a person who wants or needs attention. In fact, she is always calling to check on me! She is navigating the cruelest road I can imagine, and I have seen my share of people dying due to my career. My Friend and I talk about how Death is hideous in any form. This does not mean my friend is always perfect or even doing okay because this disease is as cruel as any out there. There are days when she cannot speak or move. There are days she will not stop talking. There are days she cries all day long and other days where she is watching Netflix and stuffs her face with pizza…
We see each other as much as possible or speak on the phone. Every time we part, she says, “remember and Hold on for one more day.” Recently I asked her to explain , and she said, “do you ever enjoy something so much like Christmas morning, or going to your child’s first school play, or your wedding day (or divorce day), or even being with someone when they die but when that day or event is over you know you won’t feel that again for another year or maybe ever?” She looked at me with her spring-green eyes and said, “We, all of us, every single human, are Trusted by the God who made us with remembering those sparks that make life such a treasure. So, we string those bits and glimpses of human treasures together like rare pearls and wear them near our heart. We must remember what love is, remember the sensation of sun on our face, or salt water on our lips. Remember our lover’s breath in our ear and our baby’s smell, and all the while we know that the next day everything will not be like it was on THIS day! So, when I say Remember and hold on for one more day, I am just saying tomorrow could bring a moment of sweetness, ecstatic happiness, or smooth Joy or a sunset in colors never seen before. Tomorrow could gift us a happening, an event, a feeling, a treasure that we never had before…so I just keep remembering and hold on for one more day. When I die, I will be wearing those pearls.”
“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:45-46
But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 2Corinthians 2:9
Finding Courage…I sat by my window. It was a trial this summer with many days in distress and concern. I would love to tell you I handled it so spiritually but at times that is not the case. I cried. I prayed. I talked to the whole tribe of medical people but of course the most important thing is that I went to the Lord and God’s Word.
My heart was longing to have courage but I really wasn’t sure what Courage looks like. So, to the Bible I went. Then I went to prayer. I told God I don’t really know what courage means and asked him to help me find some.
In the many weeks I was housebound I began to read about men and women in the Bible who took and had Courage and as I read I realized that none of these people had courage of their own. They had Courage WITH them. Courage is not only a verb but it is also one of the very definitions of God himself. Courage much like grace, mercy, and love are not earned they are GIVEN and who is the giver of all thing? God of course, through Jesus!
People who have Godly Courage have it because the Holy One saw fit to send His Son to be born, live, die, and rise again, and then send His very on Spirit to live in us and give Holy gifts!. Courage is God’s gift to us as His children.
Oh, don’t get the idea that Courage is especially beautiful. This gift might be torn and tattered. It might be beaten and bleeding. It might be weeping until dawn. Courage is the opposite of Fear. Fear is never a gift from God. He does not give fear. Fear tells you God is NOT with you. Fear says you are weak and frail and alone.
I sit by my window. I am gaining my strength as summer is drifting away with a thunder in the heavens.
I sit by my widow. God’s presence abides as faithful and as sweet as ever and I have found his gift of Courage.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).
Four days ago I turned sixty-five. I always think and ponder life at this time of a new year. My sixth-five years of attempting to be a student of my human nature and yours have been interesting to say the least.
TRUTH: Humans are scared of what we don’t know, especially if it changes life as we know it.
Godly Wisdom: Change and failure MUST occur so that humans will grow. Most of us stop growing in our early twenties. Can you believe it? Ephesians 4:15-16 – But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, [even] Christ.
TRUTH: Parents desire things for their children that perhaps they missed or lost when they were children. Or worse, parents have the illusion of controlling their child’s happiness when it is simply a lie.
Godly Wisdom: Children are a gift and parents have a responsibility to raise them without resentment. Children are ours for a season in which we are to do our best to pour Truth into them. This can only be done in faithfulness to God’s Word and Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:13 “and you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit… “
TRUTH: Grown humans often still “desire” something we did not get in childhood.
Godly Wisdom: Childhood is filled with wonder but just as well it is full of disappointment trauma, abuse and hurt. These must be recognized, named, worked on but according to God’s Word the do NOT define us. John 3:16. ” For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life. ”
TRUTH: Fear about what might happen is completely useless to us humans. 2 Timothy 1:7 ” for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and a sound mind. “
Conclusion: I am a feeble student at best. I have more questions than answers the longer I sojurn. I have seen the evil and the good. I have embraced God’s Holy Spirit pursuing me, and pointing me to Jesus Christ always! I have rebelled, stumbled, disobeyed, fallen, and I have been hated and have hated. I have seen the Transformation from dark was to light. I stand on the I infallible foundation that God is absolutely Good and their is no evil in Him whatsoever. I know this because humans are well acquainted with evil and there is none Good but God.
1 John 5:20 “We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”
Carrying on. ..
Photo by Leo Cardelli
I heard a story ’bout a poet who gave himself away
The inner city was his canvas with no color in his dreams
He was a wanderin’ grifter but no one knows for sure
It is said he still wanders ’round downtown at local bars
This City is a hard place and it stings when North winds blow
It shows no mercy to the poor child with no where else to go
I heard a story ’bout a poet who sang his songs for all the lost
Then he set himself on fire to warm them from the chillin’ frost
The children who roam the Night Streets tell the story of a man
called the Inner City Poet who comes each night to tuck them in
Inside their cardboard boxes they lay there heads upon the ground
and the wanderer sings them lullabies ’til morning comes around
Jill Autrey Dorman 