Trees Of Righteousness

“To console those who mourn in Zion,

To give them beauty for ashes,

The oil of joy for mourning,

The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;

That they may be called trees of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” Isaiah 61:3

Last week I wrote about my dear Aunt Mary Cupp’s homegoing to the Lord in the post entitled Heaven’s Dance. I told about the cherishing that so many have for her due to the rare ways that she had of blessing others with her deep wisdom, great works of kindness, and her everyday humor--fit instantly to the present moment. It is a balm to hold close these memories like a stitched coverlet to growth that she entrusted to me for protection and encouragement. These scenes keep rolling through my heart--so many more, like private love messages delivered to the gates of a fragrant garden for my tender perusal.

And so it is that this week I want to linger over the mourning that comes with the loss of those so precious to us.

It is so true that we all grieve in quite different ways, and that the intensity of the surges of loss comes in waves—great tsunamis at times, gentle lulling flip waves at others, and sometimes a peaceful long stretch to the horizon. A sight, sound, scent, an intonation of voice, a certain laugh, a quality of the wind, and the glow of a sunbeam can set the waves of mourning to leaping, and they can threaten to engulf.

It was on a recent late afternoon walk that I saw the picture I have posted with the shadows of the mighty trunked trees, their branches and foliage being held in the arms of a beautiful circular trail.  Immediately I thought of Aunt Mary and of how she would have marveled over this artistry, given her joy in the personality of every tree she had ever encountered. What was I to do with the beauty of this reflection feeling that it was mine to hold alone now?

I knew that there was something in the Scripture, a verse penned exactly to the pitch of this sorrow. I did the word searches and the Isaiah 61 passage quoted above was given to me. Not only did it send me its love note concerning the majestic trees, but also the entirety of the passage was about the ashes that we can be smitten with in the loss of our loved ones.

It talked about a consolation for us--a godly exchange that can only be supernatural. There was no “dust to dust” blank stare from this page. Where I felt the brevity of flesh, it said that I could expect to receive beauty for those ashes. For my mourning it broke the oil of gladness from the top of my head to my feet over the fact that I had my Aunt Mary, kept in Him for eternity. My heaviness over holding the image of the trees alone left me enwrapped in a seamless cloak of praise over how He does everything well for us. I would not have seen them without her early instruction to the intensity of noticing the wonder all about us. The trees were not just simply trees with their own life span, but they were a sign of righteousness, the kind that can only be planted by the Lord.  This righteousness can only eventuate in glorifying the One who planned and planted it all—the One who gave me my Aunt Mary.

Between the time that I started to write this entry earlier in the day, and now, I discovered that two trees actually have fallen upon the Cupp household as a result of the devastating storm called Sandy that hit the Eastern half of the Country in the last two days!

I could not believe that two trees were also the theme of my thoughts on grief. The Lord graciously allowed my beloved Uncle, and Cousin to be rescued in safety from the farmhouse that sits alone on the side of a beautiful Pennsylvania mountain.

Aunt Mary did not have to see her treasured home take the awful hit from the trees that she enjoyed every day. She wasn’t there sick in the living room as the catastrophe struck.

I really thought about scrapping this entire post because I knew that even the mighty trees in my picture could also fall given the brutal winds and waters that Cupp’s Hill had sustained. I couldn’t equate the collision of the metaphor of the trees from Isaiah and my picture that had brought me such a balm, with the two crashing trees at my Aunt’s home.

Then I saw it~~the tree imagery that the Scripture used was not about a real tree that can fall, but it was about how we can be built up into a planting by staying in His might when we are assured of His beauty in the ashes, His joy in the mourning, and His praise in the heaviness.  The earthly tree will fall, but the spiritual one--the tree of righteousness--will not, because its life-sap is the staying power of the Holy Spirit of Jesus within us. Wasn’t this the thing that Aunt Mary always represented to me~~seeing holiness in the mundane, even in the sometimes horribly mundane? She would have wanted me to revel in the now standing trees and to be pointed by them inward, where eternity is planted.

The greatest peace that I have found in mourning is how entirely Jesus always identified with us in each of our sorrows. When He stood outside of Lazarus’ tomb, knowing full well that He was about to raise him from the dead, He wept right along with the friends at the graveside. He was moved at the deepest places by our grief. He knew better than anyone else there about the phrase from Song of Solomon 8:6~~ “…For love is as strong as death...” He wept over our earthly losses, and would soon be the loving sacrifice that triumphed over death everlastingly.

And as He wept, I just think about the many trees of righteousness that He planted in hearts that day by how much He loves us, and by how much He knew that soon, and very soon, He would give us the full victory over death by His Cross—the prototype of the Tree of Righteousness. Yes, Aunt Mary would want me to catch this truth as it blows on Holy Spirit winds through the branches of the trees I find on my walks of Love.

Heaven's Dance

My beloved Aunt—Mary Cupp went home to be with the Lord today. By her dear example I want to exhort you with the truth that she made so real to anyone who knew her: That each one of us can touch the world in profound ways simply by being present and real with the love of the Spirit that flows through us. In a most singular way she showed me clearly what is meant in Matthew 6:5: “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Her good works seemed a secret especially to her because it was all from sheer joy and planning was not at all necessary to her to be a blessing. So many must be thanking her now for her care of them--those whom we never saw, and those to whom she won’t remember the act of kindness that was provided.

In the spirit of disclosure I will declare that:  Yes, it is true that on my first night on the planet she calmed my excessive case of baby-hiccups with her nurse’s skills by making a luxurious cradle out of a dresser drawer to relieve her nervous sister who was a first-time mother. And she was my Girl Scout Leader making the understory of the forest for me an exotic wonder forevermore because of her joy in it. She also taught me how to survive the long and cold wait for a Pennsylvanian Spring by starting a minor Winter jungle in the attic with seeds planted in egg shells all ready to go into the garden as hearty seedlings when the temperatures accommodated.

I never gained her intrepid desire to spin gardens all over the hillside with absolutely no forethought for the Poison Oak that she would have to bear for many weeks into the first bloom. She was a paper mache’ artist, and so we got to wear big funny masks in local parades and wander around intentionally bumping into each other. True, we often didn’t eat dinner until 9:00pm because we were having so much fun that she forgot to put the pot roast into the oven, but the timing was just right if your didn’t like the concoction anyway and claimed sleepiness. There was never a bird, squirrel, or deer that she didn’t want to feed as they came by the massive picture windows in the kitchen to look into the warm Cupp household from their freezing mountain home just up the hill. I learned the joy of reading from her and also how to ignore the clock when a book needed finishing. When we made homemade wild berry ice cream it was commonly accepted that the horse would come onto the back porch to get his portion from a big mixing bowl.

So much more I could tell you—about how laughter was such a big part of the punctuation of our exchanges, about how we always wore the same hats all summer and were mystified when we had permanent hat-head, or about how I won a Zinnia contest because she decided it would be best if we made the arrangement in a gravy-ladle, but I want you to know more about why she reveled in enriching the lives of children and those around her.

My Aunt Mary showed me what it meant to have a dedicated and joy-filled heart as a wife to her amazing husband, Kenny, who was her constant partner in the pursuit of the very same joys of transforming little hearts into big-hearted adults. As a mother to her children--Bill & Missy--she brought the same stunning brand of love I have described on the wings of music. Her singing voice was self-admittedly pretty awful—but this was never a hindrance to her singing heart as her children got to really gain the musical gifts that she didn’t have. If there was a child who needed a ride for some special training she was the happy chauffeur. As a head nurse in a nursing home the patients adored her so much that even the naturally gruff ones followed her around as she dispensed meds. Her humor, in a place that could be somber, made the patients know that she had hope for them and her delivery of a strong but witty statement could bring peaceful rest to the most feverish soul. Her wink was not flippant, but a seal that you could rely upon the very same optimism and resiliency to be yours by her belief in you.

As I think of her now in heaven it must be such a joy for her--as there each one knows uniquely that we are each a child of God. It is an understanding that was so developed for her already, even here in the land of the living. She must be leaping about with the fragrance of heavenly gardens abounding, knowing that no child there can ever be sick, that each one will look upon the other with the meek but fervent love of a child, and that nurses aren’t needed there, but a grand-hearted Aunt Mary can shout “Hallelujah! Here!” when the roll from the Book of Life is read with her most precious name in it. Eternal life with no more tears will be such wonderment for and with her.

So, dear Aunt Mary--no more nervous hiccups from this one. And when I can’t call you to hear your voice that knows just how to remind me about where to look for courage--to the Heavenly Father--I’ll hear your lullaby from the forest floor, from the gardens dancing on Holy Spirit winds, and from the echo of the many prayers that you have said over my life with your rarefied love. I would share hat-head with you any day, especially now with the royal child of God crown that you have received. How ready you must be to cast that before His throne from which all love is borne!

Love's Countenance

I do; I see faces around me all the time, and not just the lovely ones passing by who grant the gift of a smile. I am not embarrassed to say that I have seen faces in back-up truck lights, tree bark, pebbles on the shore, in the clouds, high-up in the towering sunflowers, on the design of building facades, on sidewalk utility covers, garage door handles, and in so many flower patches—especially the individual Bougainvillea blooms. And so from today’s image, please meet a recent comical visage encountered in one of my favorite neighborhoods. I call him Mr. Tubhead.

I make this disclosure because it seems to me to be a very foundational part of the wiring in our fearfully and wonderfully made neurological systems--to recognize the shape and structure of a face. Even my camera has been built with the technological parallel of the wonderful gift in its facial recognition feature.

If it weren’t for the first recognizable element in our babyhood--our Mother’s face--we could not have survived. She kept us so reassuringly close, as we took in the nourishment of life, that the glowing quality of the face of love is impressed upon our hearts for a lifetime. When the baby gains her clear vision, she is found constantly tracking with the mother’s voice and her beloved face. There is a numinous quality to that most important face that makes it nearly the religion of the tiny one. Without the caring and wisdom seen in those eyes, the pretty snuggly nose, and the mouth for kisses, sweet words, lullabies, and laughter there would be no significant reason, nor any possible way to grow.

The face as the vital standard for encouragement in our lives--it makes me clearly understand why I regularly find the celebrated features in places where they are not consciously meant to be.

And then there is that other thing, about the face, that also makes me so curious on my daily photography walks: It is about how rarely eye contact is made between passing strangers, but when it happens, and a smile is emblazoned in the connection, it is better than waiting on a hillside alone to greet the sunrise. It warms and makes the rest of the day golden--like a secret package of untold wealth that has passed between two strangers out of a lavishing that King Solomon would have coveted.

I believe that the smile is not something light and whimsical. I believe it is the strong foe of cynicism, a portal to broken heartedness, the opulence in the study of lighting, and the deep remembrance of parental love—placed there by the Heavenly Father Who holds our heart’s greatest longing.

A passage in Psalm 4:6 tells us how as His people we long for the face of the Lord, like a baby for the mother’s glance, and especially so in our times of brokenness: “Many are saying: ‘Who will show us any good? Lift up the light of Your countenance upon us, O Lord!”

The Lord’s face, lifted upon us, like the greatest light of all holds us closer than a nursing mother. The radiance of His love is the one embedded deepest in our hearts. Looking into His face we know that loving Him is not about the formalism of religion, but about relationship with the One Who always holds us the closest. He brings the wisdom, and the caring to save us in the only way possible—by the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and soon coming return of His dear Son, Jesus. Without it we could not grow; we are given eternal life by His perfect care.

I’ll continue to enjoy the faces that are all about in the gardens and the street side places, because it serves to remind me of the Face above all Faces, and how He has provided such sweet reflections of Himself in my loved-ones, and also in the strangers, who bring their brightness with them in their smiles and laughter. I’ll also know of the encouragements upon His lips for me at all times as we are assured of this in Romans 15:5, and also, I’ll hear the songs in the night that Job speaks of in his 35^th Chapter. All mothers learn their lullabies from the Father who is above all.

Even though Mr. Tubhead is pretty funny, I am so blessed that the Lord placed a deep message to me in this image. The Lord brought me laughter over the spiky-haired redhead--like a mother does to her child with a toy. But most importantly, He gave me a lesson to watch longingly for His most beautiful Countenance. His light, shining from His face, will always show me what is good for my nourishment. And He leaves the toys out for the children's delight, as well

Wonder Stitches

I have a story to elaborate upon in this post that has to do with how we really get to know the authentic movements of the hearts of our loved-ones, and how this embrace encircles our hearts together in a love that can be wordless at its depths. It is also about how to serve the Lord with a guileless and a worshipful heart.

It is the story from Acts 9:36-42 about a woman named Tabitha, or Dorcas, in the Greek (which means gazelle). She was compassionately raised from the dead through Peter, because of the desperate need that he saw in her community to have her back with them. What made the tears of her friends so telling? Was Dorcas a great orator? Was she a widely traveled woman who had carried the Word abroad? Would we call her a world-mover, or a super-hero, or even a great motivator of people to her cause? Most likely, none of these would fit--not by her seemingly simple acts--which we will see.  Every day she pulled a needle and thread through fabric.  She made tunics for the poor widows who had captured her sweet disciple’s passions by their impoverished distress. Here is her story from the Scripture:

“At Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did.  But it happened in those days that she became sick and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. And since Lydda was near Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they sent two men to him, imploring him not to delay in coming to them. Then Peter arose and went with them. When he had come they brought him to the upper room. And all the widows stood by him weeping, showing the tunics and garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them. But Peter put them all out, and knelt down and prayed. And turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. Then he gave her his hand and lifted her up, and when he had called the saints and the widows, he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed on the Lord.”

Every time I envision those friends uncontrollably weeping, not able to speak, but only able to point to the wonders that her hands had produced, my heart leaps over the ways that we are given to cherish each other. I included a picture today of how I think those widow’s tunics must have felt to the recipients as they held them up for Peter to see. They must have been like wrappings of wonder around their Children-of-God bodies. Her love for them, as she wove and pieced together the material, dressed them up in a wonder of grace that they may have never known in any other way.

Dorcas didn’t amass a great industry in Joppa to sew with her; She didn’t put posters around the city about the widow’s plight; She didn’t feel that she had the only way to help the poor. It would seem that each day she was simply seen untiringly at her post, with tenderlovingkindness, bent over the next wonder-embrace that she would give to the next dear soul who needed the warmth she could supply.

What is so compelling about Dorcas is that by her simple, but monumental, love we are told that this disciple’s life brought many to belief in the Lord. Her name meaning the gazelle tells me that she was so light and lovely, so bounding and quick, that she knew, without any reserve, what the call upon her life was and she leapt to it instantly, never calculating its reach--only seeing the one in need before her. The Holy Spirit power that raised her by Peter’s prayer and his gentlemanly offering of his hand to help her up tells me to stop any rehearsals about how my ministry should progress, and to call it all worship, just like Dorcas did as she stitched wonder into her tunics--never counting the number. A tunic, made in love, is as big as a dedicated ministry that touches thousands. Heaven’s mathematics finds its proof in the authenticity of the heart.

Wonder-stitches! Dorcas and her precious story makes me want to leap to those things that He has gifted me with that would help to hold together those around me with the sweet and immeasurably grand love of Jesus. How the community must have wept again, now with joy, when Peter returned her to them alive and ready to make another tunic--full of wonder!

Supernatural Streetlights

The local church that we attend, Faith Community, San Diego, is doing some remodeling after many decades with basically the same decor and site layout. It’s not that the superficiality of fashion is greatly important, but safety and clean upgrades are meaningful to those who gather to worship in a fellowship that highlights the faces of those around us as we look to Jesus for His sustenance.

One of the things that a lot of people seem agreed upon is the necessity of the replacement of the lights in the sanctuary. They are looking a somewhat rickety after their 30 years or so of luminous travail! Worship and media will be enhanced by an improved design that incorporates better optics and a positioning that lights-up all the areas where ministry can take place.

But as I think about the changes, something about the old lights has touched my heart. Each one is a kind of a simple chandelier with a few cylindrical golden glass tubes coming off the ironwork, with a cross at the bottom. Many people have found Jesus under this glow, we have sung and cried, laughed and known silence, been healed and held in prayer, and we have wonderfully told the stories of our testimonies beneath the hard-working little lamps, placed a bit too high in the vaulted ceiling.

I wasn’t trying to be sentimental, but the lights made me think about what I really love about our church. And that is this: That it is the people-lights in our church that don’t respect a wall, or the height of a ceiling, or the design of the light cylinder, that makes my heart race to be together with these people of God each week.

They cast their beams into the city that we inhabit every day. We don’t need either rickety or elegant fixtures to spread abroad the love of Christ from a street corner. We need Jesus’ words rising from our hearts with the understanding that comes from Matthew 5:14: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” The real lights of the Church will penetrate, with a fervent passion, the streets where we live--where people long for a break in the unrelenting darkness. We must be a people that bring the healing warmth of light to the open wounds of the brokenness in the darkest places of the city--far from the hospitality of our well-positioned lamps in a building called the church.

In Daniel 2:22 it is said of the Lord: “It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, And the light dwells with Him.”

The darkness alive in the everyday world of the city is something that I cannot fully know, but the Lord does, and He takes us into the places of hidden things to redeem them by the Light that always dwells with Him as He accompanies us.

We don’t yet have a new design for our lamps at the church building, but I thought that I might submit for consideration such a one as the photo I’ve posted. This way we could constantly remember the brokenhearted with a light appropriate to the streets, and alleys, and dumpsters, and the evil that can lurk there, and we would know that the wattage necessary to reveal the Light in such darkness is always that of the supernatural Light of the Sun of Righteousness.

A Light Lesson

As a child I spent many hours sequestered on a hillside, under a tree, in a bedroom, reading fables. I liked the ones that clearly detailed the moral to the story at the end. I think that was because they seemed so nicely complete to me, and that they were usually so far out of my grasp to understand. This meant that I was promised to have so much more to learn in this great wide and ready-to-be-explored world.

In today’s post I’ve written just such a fable about my unending curiosity over the tiny featherweight giants that buzz through our world known as the hummingbirds. You will find a moral at the end of the tale, but I know it won’t be too high for your understanding. It will simply be illuminating about an ounce-weight little bird and what his God-given neon colors of light can teach us:

Once upon a time there was a regal hummingbird named Renaldo the Resplendent. In all the field guides of the land of Buzzburgh it was said that he was the most highly-stylized in coloration, that his bill was the envy of all the great sword-designers of the kingdom, and that he was dubbed the most truculent of warriors due to his monumental size, being that he was only an inch and a half long. His type was that known as the Fuchsia-Tufted Star Throat, and as you will see he easily fit his description, and more, as he used all the weaponry available to his species to overcome a foul foe.

Renaldo was also known as a quite protective father, although as a warrior he was not overly indulgent with his little son Reny II, since this would be unseemly for one so valiant.

One day he saw Reny hovering over a brilliant zinnia patch. He watched his son’s aerial maneuvers, and marveled at the silly youngster wasting all his energy just displaying his flight talents rather than harvesting the energy necessary to his very existence that resided in the beckoning flower-patch. Reny somersaulted with high-bounding dives only to swing back up into the ethers, inscribing hummingbird calligraphy all over the heavens to the delight of his gemlike bird audience.

Soon his father saw Reny drop to a flower stem to rest his magnificent flight muscles after his grand, but dangerous, display. Then, immediately, Renaldo spotted the ever-so-present danger to his flight-happy son. Right below him on the zinnia branch was a massive praying mantis, who was know as Gorgon the Shapeshifter--gigantic, and most terrible of all the fright-monster insects of Buzzburgh.

The creature could mimic himself as just another branch of a plant, and he could even add the lush look of a leaf to his disguise. The other trait that the beast was known for was that he enjoyed hummingbirds for his dinner, when he could catch them, which was rare since they were usually much faster than he was. Today though Reny was not that fast, as a matter of fact, he was exhausted and winded just below the head of the most brilliant of the fuchsia-colored zinnias.

Gorgon’s leaf like massive arm reached-out for the entirely spent Reny. Renaldo darted to the aid of his depleted son and parried Gorgon with his swordbill, but the monster hurled him back to an adjacent ditch. Renaldo was not used to such degradation, but from his dismal landing place he saw a flashing beam of dazzling sunlight playing off the fuchsia hues from the bloom over Reny’s tired head. He easily saw the resonance in this spectacle with his own gorgeous feathering, as he too had a star-like spot of fuchsia on his throat.

Quickly he surveyed the situation and realized that his ounce-weight could not come against the mammoth Gorgon no matter how great his fencing skills were. But Renaldo also knew how to use light to attract (This was how he had won Reny’s mother.), and he knew how to use it to distract, as well. He calculated the distance that he would have to fly and hover to triangulate the sun’s flow off of his stunning throat and through the perfectly colored zinnia-head. He sped to that point. The light was like an explosion of flames all around the confused and bewildered Gorgon, who fell from his clever hiding place into a puddle of mud. The Shapeshifter was now nothing but a mud-blob, and was having no small amount of difficulty extracting himself from the gooey mess.

The permanently color-blinded Gorgon decided upon a dinner of foliage that evening, after he regained his vision from the flaming encounter. From that day on the monster could only eat the vegetation along the low-lying ditches of Buzzburgh!

Renaldo and Reny swerved and angled off to a nearby lilac bush where Reny learned the lesson of reflected light from the grand and brilliant Renaldo, and he only wanted to become as wise as his great pilot-father, at both harvesting nectar, and just being entirely lovely for the delight of all the citizens of Buzzburgh.

From that day hence Reny was always faster and wiser than Gorgon, or any of his ogre-like brothers, and one day he was even named Renaldo II for all the sparkling lights that he dazzled throughout the entire land with his shining plumage. Applause filled the heavens for how the sunbeams played off Reny’s daytime star-throat. He loved being a light-dancer even as he fed upon the nectar that had been placed there just for him and his dazzling family at the rainbow colored zinnia-garden.

MORAL OF THE STORY: When choosing weaponry against an enemy who wants to take your life, remember the wise use of the power of light.

The Scripture says it in such a wonderfully direct way in Romans 13:12 (Amplified Version): “The night is far gone and the day is almost here. Let us drop (fling away) the works and deeds of darkness and put on the (full) armor of light.”

A Child of God's Address

I found this singular child’s playhouse along a bright afternoon’s walk in my neighborhood. The preciousness of love borne by the parents who provided it took my heart directly to something that Jesus said in Matthew 18:2-4 (NIV): “He called a little child and had him stand among them. And He said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

I thought about the little ones playing in this sweet structure, under the fine protective eye of their mother or father. The chair had been placed just outside the wonderful gift--made perfectly ready for the sitting, standing, or running of a parent--always as a response to the child’s needs. The upkeep on the miniature home was impeccable. It had the kitchen setting for early adventures in hospitality with playmates. A lovely tree graced its landscaping for shade, and also to mark its place in a deep rooting of love. A flower box was built for the season of germination, and for the study of how seedlings grow and become strong. A front porch light covered the threshold for safety. And the place was painted in the varied and festive colors that most likely would be rejected for an adult’s home. I noticed that it had no numerical address, as the inhabitants were assured of being found by the ones who had constructed it.

How were the children inside this mini-structure to give us lessons on being citizens in the kingdom of heaven?

At the very first, I saw that they were playing at the lessons of growing-up. Also, they weren’t worrying about many things: household upkeep, the paperwork over who held the deed on the property, the hours of labor to support their residence. They knew that safety was a shout away. They bustled about only thinking of the present.  Fretting did not fill the sound of their occupation--but singing did. They had unquestioning trust in the provider. Their home was not a bunker against friends—but a place of welcome to other children. They were blessedly happy with gratitude over knowing their benefactor and that it was their parent’s love that had brought all of these gifts to their hearts-bounty. They knew that with their own resources none of these things could be possible. They lived humbly needing to be tended to by ones so much bigger and so much more capable than they were. But still it was quite clear that they were to learn well from those who had covered them in love, and hope, and life giving care from the beginning.

As adults, all of these responsible things must concern us, but I believe that Jesus’ example with the little child was to remind us that even as an adult, we should hold onto these things with the little hands that have been taught to know of the mighty right arm of the One Who essentially owns it all--that the ultimate trust is not in our (beautiful to Him) making-hands, but in the Hand of the Creator who guides our hands to mature in Him. We are to work wisely as the little-ones play--made safe by Him, full of thanks, with expansive friendship toward others, with students’ hearts that have studied how things grow best, giving natural praise in the song of our voices, and with the festive colors of encouragement showing both on the inside and the outside. We are to be ultimately sure that our Father sits with us, stands for us, and runs to us from just outside our little domiciles. Trust permeates us over the Present that He is to us in each present moment--so much so, that he hears the songs of praise over how He does all things well--in all our conditions.

I was still thinking about the address missing over the tiny playhouse. It came to me as a flourish of wonder from the passage in Matthew 18. The Father writes over the lintel of such a household: The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven Lives Here~~A Child of God. And laughter rolled out of my soul as I thought of the heavenly crayon-colored love-letters that would arrive in the mail of such a humble-little-one!

Unquenchable Love

There are so many stunning lines of passionate love poetry in the Song of Solomon that a study of this book can bring with it an overwhelming of the senses. When I read it, I’m carried away to a place that makes the Lord’s love for me so singular and so personal that I have to absorb it in small pieces like something so rich, and with such intensity of affection, that I don’t want to miss a line without lingering.  It is laden with the fragrance of romance; it describes the first-love wonder of the Lover for his Beloved; it tells of a first-love that is and remains--love.

There is nothing whimsical in the declaration. The promises are taken to the extreme lengths of surety. We can build our confidence on this fervency that nothing in the world delineates with such assurance, as evidenced by one of the phrases engrained upon beloved hearts that know of our Lover’s faithfulness:

“ Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned” (Song of Solomon 8:7, NIV Translation).

An elegantly beautiful house is situated right on the cliff above the Pacific’s song-filled waves in my picture. All of the wealth that stands before, and behind, and around it could be written as a check for the purchase of love, and it would be a document of derision. In a world where the use of the term “love” can be so cheapened by its transient and disposable aftermaths, this kind of a true valuation of love’s worth buoys the heart to stand richly covered in its treasures, that can only come from its Creator, the One who said in His Word: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10, NIV). In all conditions, we cannot ever out-love God. When we are as far away from Him as is possible, He loves us with a note that no one else can sign, written in the most precious substance in the universe--the blood of His Son.

We know of the allure of visiting many waters--that our thirst can be slaked by the abundance available to us. We know of rivers too wild to be traveled. But as well as the Lord’s love is beyond valuation, it is also mighty to stay, at all times. It doesn’t get its fill and move on as the wrongly named loves around us have with their Hollywood plots of brevity. It can ride wild rivers to accompany the Beloved, and never leave due to a severity of circumstance. It abides even in life’s floods, and it completes the restructuring of our heart’s place after the devastation, because His presence is far more precious than any loss, or any number of losses, can be. His presence holds the losses in keeping to care for our wounds—seemingly too deep to be assuaged. He always wants to know us at the deepest places from which the water of life springs-up within us--it is always fresh to Him. We are endlessly worth the pursuit. And we also, find Him everywhere in our most elated peaks of joy and in our lowest and most terrible sorrows.

He keeps saying that we are beyond price to Him. Look to the palaces of the world; marvel over their opulence, and it is all an empty shell compared to the value of the love that the Lord bears for us. Try to fathom the worth of the deed that He carries to buy us back to His ample bosom of love, and numbers will fail in a formula. Look to many waters; watch the thundering rivers, and see that the One who Loves our souls has the voice of might that out-roars all of them in His shout to come for us, to rescue us, and to keep us as His Beloved far beyond any tally that could set a price on His own--the Beloved of the Lord.

Praise dances abound to the blessed choreography of the sea spray of the many waters of the Lord’s incalculable love-song for us!

Compassion's Music

I look into the skies and the quality of illumination makes it real to me that there is, indeed, a sheet music of praise stretched across the heavens at all times. It is a song that I hear even on the grayest of days. The Scripture says it this way in Isaiah 49:13:

“Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on His afflicted ones.”

The twisting reach of a long branch has its movement set to the classical music of the ballet as it spirals its way skyward--a pointer to the One who fashioned the tree’s pose. The wind in the tops of the blooms rustling in a garden is the jazz of heavens spontaneity to improvise with fragrant grace. The crash of the waves along the shore is a great echoing round, as it then pulls back over the rocks, singing the movements of the tides with the gravity of His love for us. The mountains have the might to carry their thanksgiving in operatic arias that make us exclaim over their steep reaches to glory. The streams bubble with the sweet high notes of Children of God at play. The deserts sing acappella with the sparseness of their resources, and the surety of their singular stunning voice. The birds need no metaphor for their praise as they unsparingly set the winds and the trees into great anthems of joy daily. And the stars shimmer with the notes that light the theater of our nights.

The image I posted here was a day of gloominess--both in the weather, and in my heart. When I saw the sheet music stretched out across the firmament, with the leafy notes upon the lines, I was filled with wonder over what the song would sound like. I couldn’t translate its notation into music. I am not trained, and perhaps it was too rarefied a song for me to read and sing. When I found the passage quoted above from Isaiah 43, I realized that this song was too precious for me to do anything but to receive it.

It told me that the heavens and the earth have this music from the Lord for our comfort. The trees, flowers, waves, mountains, streams, deserts, birds, stars, and all that He has made, are a gospel choir poised to be lifters of our heads. They sing to cheer us and to assure us that He has compassion upon the afflictions that wound us. They sing while we cry to keep His profound care and comfort ever reliably before us. If we listen they will surround us in lullabies even in the darkest part of any night.

If we look up in the confidence of His covering over us, the sheet music will be clearly unfurled with the music written precisely for our condition. And not even the Meadow Lark’s beautiful song could utter one note that would contradict His song of love to be with us, and to rock us with all of Heaven’s sweet rhythms until we can stand again with our own song of praise renewed and revived.

The creation is beautiful to behold, but hearing its music makes me know that it is founded upon praise that comes from the very first when the “Spirit of God hovered over the waters” (Genesis 1:2b) with His elegant musical whirring—the prelude to all of creation.

Dusk and Dawn

“Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place . . . ?” Job 38:12

The passages at the end of the book of Job, where God addresses Job, are some of the most phenomenal pieces of poetry and truth ever written. Each stunning phrase follows so rapidly upon the other, that they are breathtaking—making for light-headedness when I read them. But I had to pause on this one as I looked at this image that I took of dusk’s gate in the drifting shadows.

Dawn and dusk are both such times of intensity in any day. The qualities of light dance in different ways when the sun is low to the horizon. Photographers search out the most riveting places in the world during these two periods of daylight to frame its magnificence. In Job, the Lord says that we can’t command their timing, nor can we plot their arrival and departure. And this is so true. How laughable, really, to think that we could control them. But I do know that by our familiarity with them they have become strong metaphors for us. Dawn is the hope-filled start of something new, and dusk is its closing.

For many years I have awakened watching the new day’s sun filter through the leaves as it rises, and I have also thrilled to the adventure of finding its expressive lights at dusk. I realize that in appearance they can have great similarities, even though in meaning they are quite different to us. It struck me that I could actually walk along the streets of dusk or dawn, and not know which light it was, without analyzing the direction of its emanation. The quality of the breaking morning light has its twin in early evening’s closing canvas.

I wondered if the Lord had a message in this revelation. Is it possible that in the Lord’s planning of the sunrise He has placed in its luster a tinge of dusk, so that we won’t cling too tightly to control it? Could it be that in dusk’s sienna paintings that He has placed dawn’s glowing belief in the newness of promise? Is it possible that the Lord has found our metaphors to be too one-dimensional? We can find hope in a closing that points to more wholeness. And we can be rooted and grounded in the seemingly wild exhilaration of new possibilities by knowing that there will be a blessed closure.

It also says from Job’s sainted lips in 7:4: “ When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ but the night continues, and I am continually tossing until dawn.”  How honest Job was with us in his book that he said had to be written. When I find myself awake and tossing in the night watch like Job, I now want to remember dusk’s lit-up pledge that the dawn will bring a new assurance of meaning. The One who sets the lights has left a message in both day’s beginning and day’s end for us to hope in His reliability. In the deepest part of the evening His lullaby to us is to believe for His next light. They will return with His truth and His warming rays having the consistency of day following night. I just don’t know of any promise more profoundly telling than His readiness to give us discernment by the return of His light!

My prayer is for the Job within me to be swaddled in His light, both morning and evening, and for the stretches in between, to watch for His stunning resonance off the horizon—it will bring with it a curving gate that opens onto expanses of bright significance.

Sunset Prayers

At dusk, just before the sun glides below the Pacific, I am deeply touched by the tenderness and awe of the many onlookers who come to watch the event. It is far more moving than any media gathering I have ever seen.

We watch for nuances of blending color as the sun dips low. We hope for rainbows as the cloud formations filter the light. Given the right atmospheric conditions, the green flash that can spread-out as the last rays shoot across the horizon causes a lull and then a great cheer. Sometimes I would rather watch the sunset as it reflects off all of those lovely faces more than the display over the Pacific. Golden wonder paints each face that allows a bit of the child’s surprise to return where it had been so trapped and darkened by the day’s frenzy and trouble.

It is about the words~~sunset and sunrise~~that I am now most struck. If we really look at their structure we know that they are inaccurate in their description. The sun neither sets, nor rises, but on our little planet Earth, we rotate toward and away from its full effects on a 24-hour cycle.

And still the words are fine with us! I think this has to do with the golden glow already noted on the watching faces. Our statements about the sun’s arrival and departure have more to do with our feeling about it than the accuracy of our terms. It is experienced as the sun leaving and coming because of the reliably and profoundly fundamental quality of the event.

Psalm 19: 6 says it this way: “Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end. And there is nothing hidden from its heat.” This is the way that we see the sun from our place here on the earth. In this case, because it is so majestic, our scientific bent can bow to our poetic heart, just as David did in his Psalm.

David’s science, as well as his heart, on the issue was entirely correct though when he said that: “…nothing is hidden from its heat.” The sun is the star that sustains all life here on Earth. The miracle of its placement in the heavens makes it such a marvel that can easily explain the crowds along the shore at sunset. At nearly 93 million miles away we are accurately positioned to have our entire planet wonderfully warmed by its heat. Given any, even slight, change in its positioning and we would either be burnt-up or frozen-stiff.

The sun, though altogether amazing, can receive no worship. The reason for amazement is over the Creator wielding such a protractor with the perfect settings for our life and protection. Every new day and evening is a reason for gratitude over our Defender—the Creator.

David again writes: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained. What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” Psalm 8:3

I have a friend whose amazingly curious four-year-old daughter asked her Mother: “So Mom, about that sunset, does it really fall into the ocean?” It astounded me over how real are the questions of a child. I like to think that we can be as real in our perplexities. “So, Lord, how could You love us so much as to shower us with your gold each evening when your sun sets, only to have it return with utter predictability with the same life-giving lights off another shore?”

Running Like the Father

The Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15: 11-32 is a stunning lesson on compassion and forgiveness, confession and redemption. There is so much to linger over in each rich movement of the hearts in this story that Jesus told. It was a parable that scandalized His legalistic listeners, because a son who would squander his inheritance on partying and profligate living was to be completely rejected. As a vengeance tale it was an often-told story that Jesus, in His version, turned into an example of grace and mercy that never looks to the social affront, but to the soul that has gone missing and is relentlessly loved beyond all rationality.

It is verse 20 in this parable that pursues me every day: “And he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him, and kissed him.” The father actually watched the distant horizon every day, many times through the day, and he even knew the silhouette of the young man over great spans of hills and valleys. The son left with the haste that focused only on his own worldly pleasure, with no desire to return, and still the father watched longingly everyday.

Couldn’t the father have walked with a solemn sternness? Couldn’t he have waited for the penitent to grovel and then dismissed him with disdain? Couldn’t the father have soothed his own loss by trying to forget the image of the vain son and never have looked to the distance for a return? No!  Instead this father runs with complete abandon for the little speck that he sees trudging dejectedly along a country slope. And he falls upon him with the kisses and hugs normally afforded to a returning warrior. This father is an Olympian marathoner of love! And this son receives the father’s gold medal for the race.

In the image that I have posted for this story about the running father, several things strike me: The daughter’s gait is so like the father’s. She is behind him and learning about the best ways to train for endurance and strength. The joy in her pace shows that there is no better trainer than this father of hers who has always run for her. He has taken her to the seashore for this jog, as it will be kinder to her young legs to learn well in this place. The father’s strength inspires the hope in his child that one day she too will know exactly when, where, and how to accelerate her pace without her Papa. The sun in this place makes for the warmth of tendons and muscles providing the excellence of the venue. He takes her to a place of such loveliness that the lesson will carry with it the beauty of his love for her in indelible memories.

I want to learn to run like my heavenly Father has always run for me!

Couldn’t He have strolled over and chastised such a selfish and lost soul? The run that He made extracted me incisively from such an enveloping quicksand that I can still see his speed through the dirt covering even my eyes. His good right arm to lift immediately washed me in His forgiveness. How did He recognize me from my sin-sick distance so far away from His protective covering? He always knew and loved my form. He waited and watched for me to look homeward to Him. Instantly His swiftness brought my escape into His embrace.

He now takes me to run in a place where I get to see how my gait can be like his—full of mercy and grace. The speed He trains for can only be given supernaturally by His Holy Spirit to love in places of darkness and deep disappointment. He knows I am growing up, becoming more like Him with each outing along the sea. He takes me to the places where training is optimal--where I can see Him and feel the Sun of Righteousness warming my growth in Him. Seeing Him before me, I’m struck by the beauty and might of His form to run to help me if I stumble. Wherever I go with Him is a Papa-beautiful place imprinted upon my heart to want a gait just like His!

Watch for Him--it won’t be a blur--but it will be astounding for He is the God who runs! Why would He have to come with such urgency? Time does belong to Him and the pace is His to set. He runs to be with us, as He knows that we need Him immediately whether along a shoreline, or at the 3:00am watch upon our beds. The God who runs is present instantaneously and He is the Papa-Present in His arrival along any golden shore!

A Monumental Hummingbird

How is it possible to be uninterested in a hummingbird? Their speed of flight which must be one of their greatest defenses, the way that they hover and can fly in any direction quicker than the eye can see them come or leave, their iridescent colors that glimmer in the sunlight, their need to eat nectar and insects nearly constantly to maintain such acrobatic energy levels, their ability to go into a torpid state at night if the temperatures go too low while they can’t eat, their diminutive size as compared to their outright boldness, their claim to territories even if they have to mob other birds gigantic in size when compared to them, their eggs that are smaller than an m&m candy, their nests woven of  elastic spider webs and mosses that expand with the rapid growing sword billed chicks,  and their outright fearlessness over the presence of a person near their feeding place—all of these things, and so much more make them astonishing wonders of the Lord’s creatively speaking voice. I often wonder how Adam could actually choose a name for such a marvel (“…and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.” Genesis 2:19)!

In San Diego we have the Anna’s Hummingbirds, with their crimson red markings, that stay with us year-round. They are a delight in all seasons. I have watched them puff up at our feeder even in the windiest winter storm coveting the vital sugar water that is provided on our porch. In the ease of summer they come like a brilliantly lit-up Christmas decoration out of season. I am familiar with their sounds and behaviors, but always curiously excited over their antics.

The picture posted here though is of the autumnal orange Rufous Hummingbird—the first that I’ve spotted in several years. We really have to watch for them because their visits are so brief as they are only passing through on the longest migration route of any hummingbird, from southern Alaska to southern Mexico. They are 3.75 inches long with a wingspan of 4.5 inches—a mystery of flight with their unimaginable 12,000-mile round-trip migration.

I am not at all accustomed to the Rufous’ behavior since I see them so rarely, but I do know easily when they arrive on the porch. The sound of their widely spread wings is like the roar of a motorcycle that appears alongside in traffic, seemingly out of nowhere. Even though the Anna’s are twice their size they can immediately chase them from the feeder with the sheer force of their superb flight. Nothing will stop them in getting the nourishment needed for the unbelievably long trip. I look at them and I am amazed at their monumentally determined behavior. They are, indeed, little to our eyes. But I really think that for this kind of tenacity they must find themselves to be giants, perhaps measuring against a gnat, or a piece of pollen on the wind.

I really like the curious story of the amazing Rufous, and I’m drawn by what it means to me spiritually. Within we can have the power of the Holy Spirit, and I have witnessed miracles of such broad proportions to my small woman-sized dimensions ever since He came to live within my heart. I also know that Jesus said: “…I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you.” Matthew 17:20

For me, the rare visitation of the fiery Rufous makes him my mustard seed reminder in my faith. I can become a great flier on the whirring and most skilled wings of the Holy Spirit--hovering, or dashing with lightning speed as He guides. I can ingeniously construct nests of protection for the little ones by His instructions. The nectar for the serious energy to persevere for the longest journey is the Communion of Christ, in His broken body and His blood shed for me. And I can be fearless because He tells me in 1 Samuel 17:47 that the battle is the Lord’s. And what about the colors of his love for me—dazzling in the Light of His Son!

Blessed preposterous flight dear Rufous! My faith flies along with you on Holy Spirit wings.

Flowers in Profusion

The flowers have already appeared in the land; the time has arrived for pruning the vines, and the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.” Song of Solomon 2:12 This is the last phrase from a dream I awoke from this morning. It lifted me into my day, and this is the view from the blessed launching:

I wondered if it was put upon my lips because of how the flowers decorate the gardens of so many of my photographs. I thought about how they bring with them the vivacity and joy of their unfurling to our homes. I could envision the bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths as they intensely look for the very ones made for them to pollinate. I felt excited, as I knew I would soon be out among them watching the light glance off their silken colors. Perfume filled the rising from my pillow.

Although these are all touching reflections upon my exorbitant joy in the blooms, they weren’t what I felt the dream was telling me. I decided to look into the structural purpose of the gorgeous ruffles along so many of my daily paths (especially so, as they appear all year round in San Diego).

They are far from being just momentary beauties.  They are reproductive engines of the most ingenious design! When I saw the singular ways in which they have been fashioned to ensure their continuance I was thrilled by their mysterious wonder even more. Each one of the amazing windborne ballet-costumes has within it the fruit or the seed of its own multiplication. The flower dances in welcoming celebration to its visitors to carry it on to another place of glorification. It never wants to simply flourish in a beauty for beauty’s sake, for such a small sweet moment, and to say that this was its only purpose.

Ah! The dream was making sense. Our lives have their own way of blooming along the Way. They do give the bright glory to the One who made us, but within all of us is the seed, or the fruit, to spread the glory ever further. A life is not about a solitary beauty; it is to send out the great and ever more loving profusion of grace upon the land. We have been designed to grow gardens of grace by the wings of our loved-ones, those who visit with us and fly to other places of great wonder. Gossamer gowns do not hide the seed and the fruit within us, at the center is the real heart of our presence to be with each other. The things within are even more lovely and bounteous than the things on the outside. The seed and the fruit endure; the petal does not. I was getting my Matthew 26:28 lesson this day about observing the lilies of the field and how they grow.

Just moments later as I was reading my Psalm for the morning (17), I actually heard a dove on the ledge of our window. I rushed to see if it was so. A pair of doves was scouting out a nesting place and their voices came right to my place of study. What were they saying? The last sentence of this Psalm is: “I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.”

It was just so for me this morning. And His likeness was scented with the teachings of delightful gardens and with the voice of the turtledove in our land.

A Hymn of Friendship

They regularly come to the park that I frequent at sunset—this group of young bright women. They always bring their gaiety to overflow to the others in the little seaside place. They come to do some stretches, and yoga poses, but mostly they seem to come for the joy of sharing in a moment of refreshment with friends who have made it a priority to make a statement to one another about how vital they are to a life of buoyancy during all of the other times. They may have a lot in common, and they may also be quite different in their life places, but they come in the garb of play, with hair tucked-up from the winds, and with the song-like sounds of sweet recognition.

Seeing them always reminds me about the impact of fellowship upon our spiritual health--about how the face of a friend is far better than any prescription that could ever be written. In one of Paul’s New Testament letters he wrote this incredible note upon the character of his friend, saying: “For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.” (Philemon 7) I imagine these women having a version of this verse resonating in their hearts later in the evening when meals must be served, and responsibilities have their own and very different tune than the one by the ocean.

This kind of fellowship brings with it a depth of foundation that strengthens hearts for a new resiliency in even the most seriously demanding of times. The comfort of a friend readily brings a valiant heart because: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17) The refreshment of the time by the waves brings back the rhythm of a love that inspires and surrounds us with comfort.  The renewal comes from the deepest place of knowing that a friend bears the same name as the One Who in John 15:15 called Himself our Friend.

I continue to watch them meet under the stained-glass-window light of the brilliant Pacific sunset. Their movements are praise dances to my heart. Their greetings are the most blessed celestial worship music. My soul that longs after such instruction hears their affirmations on the wind as a mighty sermon. The stretching that they do makes for the flexible knees of prayer. The awe that comes from seeing the rays of rainbow light separate as the sun goes below the horizon allows for the hush of wonder--the deeply mysterious understanding that our curious hearts can never know about it all, but can stand silently before the Creator’s beauty. And when the women stand shoulder to shoulder I think of how a friend is born both to share our joys and our sorrows in the blessed lavishing of their passion for us.

This morning two friends came and bore me away to the seaside to make the time for praise-laughter, and to be certain that we stayed attuned to the sound of each other’s lives. Their joyous faces took me to the same church that goes beyond the walls of my local sanctuary. We were by the Pacific in that place where I remembered the women singing, dancing, praying, encouraging and strengthening each other for a mighty walk in the palette of His joy over us.  There were great streams of gold in shades indescribable in an all-around embrace. This embrace reached out with muscular golden arms to every one in the park at the earth’s edge. I tucked-up my hair, made sure that I was dressed for the frolic, and was made safe by the songs of my friends and by the anthem of the Hymnmaker—the Lord Who is the Author of Friendship.

Encouragements without a Season

Does encouragement need a timetable? Do these precious words need to be added in only during the bleak seasons? It would seem to me that they are always on time! During the dark times they do bring, on their helpful winds, the needed balm for the courage to move ahead. It is often difficult though to tell from appearance that the storms are raging in a particular life.

The unique character of each person is truly an opportunity to see the gift of their wisdom, their resilience, their brightness, their authentic preciousness to make it exactly where they are—whether it is the time of breezes by the shore, or the tumultuous tossing upon dark seas. Thomas a Kempis said it this way: “Be assured that if you knew all, you would pardon all.” This profound statement is so free of judgment that it moves me to know that I don’t have to know it all about another person to encourage them, I only want to extend a word aptly spoken—one that is  “like apples of gold in settings of silver..” (Proverbs 25:11) These are the words surely fit for a feast--for the sweet nourishment of fortification.

These kinds of words can be the treasure that moves a life out of dark dead-end alleys. I have hundreds of these phrases that I cherish upon my heart. Their delivery still carries the import of the face of my friend who cared to move me from shadow to wide sunlight, or to move me to a new stage of passion in my gifts.  The faces of encouragement have given me of their heart when it could have been a risk to do it-- it may have looked foolish, or have seemed too deep when a platitude could have sufficed (Really, never!).

I have always felt convinced that exhortations are really the profuse overflow of grace (as I watch Jesus walk abroad, reveling in the stranger on the road, in the Gospels) and these Love-phrases are always in season. Romans 15:5-6 was the summit for me: “Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus; that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

An encouragement doesn’t need a bouquet of roses for accompaniment; it has its own blissful fragrance. The image that I’ve posted was a kind word given to me along with the joyous flowers. As I set them on the table they were next to the absurdly, but well bound book that you see in the image--the impetus for this post. It is a photography book with a picture, including a clock, taken somewhere in the world for every minute of a full 12 hour period. As I looked at the juxtaposition I thought about encouragements as the true poetry of a life, and if at the end of my life, all of the encouragements that I have delivered could be bound, I would want it to have a massive reality defying binding on such a blessed book. I would want the graphics on the front to be a silver bowl with golden apples, and on the spine it would read in preposterously large letters: ON TIME!

Be encouraged, Dear Reader! You are so worthy to be urged-on in your valiant and singular life.

Delight Comes First

The Coral Trees (also known as Flame Trees) have always brought me to marvel beneath their beauty. When I first saw them I thought they were the finest of wonders I had ever witnessed. You see, for most of the year they are a solitary twisting anatomy of a tree—bare branches with no evident hope of fullness. The shadows in this image show you their low-to-the-ground turning shape.

But when they dress-up each year, it is not a profusion of leaves that comes first with perhaps some buds mingled within the green foliage. The Lord decorates this tree, from the first, with flamboyant red ornaments at the tip of its branches. Its flowers are like a rapturous chorus celebrating the season of blossoming. The design of the bloom is in the shape of a far-flung Bird-of-Paradise in mid-flight. The fact that the flowers are blood red in color, and pointing towards an open heaven gives lyrics to the triumphant song. Their decoration with the flower first, is for me a reminder of the Savior’s ultimate sacrifice upon Calvary’s Tree.

Is this delight of mine over the Coral Tree a solitary poetic reverie? As my signature verse on the touching message of the Coral Flower, I’ll let Hebrews 12:3 write the message on my heart:  “For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.”

There is the deepest refreshment as we look to the Cross of Christ (a cure for weariness, and the flagging heart), and it can be found by looking-up and seeing something from the Coral Tree--something about a delight that is uncontainable. Delight has to come first--like the Coral Flower! Whatever it is that we enter into, whether it is wonderful adventure, or deep trial—the Cross of Jesus says to choose joy first—indeed, choose His joy. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that it was “…for the joy set before Him that He endured the Cross…”. Without His joy over us there is no Salvation! Coral Tree songs fill my breast with praise.

Considering Him! His profound messages are everywhere for our renewal and encouragement. Today they are found at the base of a Coral Tree overlooking the grand Pacific with a wondrous decoration of His love overhead. May we choose delight first--to be a flame of coral joy for Him.

Soaring in All Conditions

The warm updrafts of Holy Spirit winds are easily the most gymnastic of places for spiritual soaring. In His surrounding love we may play acrobatically on lofty breezes that reach high into the heavens. A somersault, a looping trajectory, an artistry of wing action--all of these are the characteristics of flight in clear and ample skies. In this pleasant air it is far easier to remember Jesus' lesson for us concerning the birds: "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" (Matthew 6:26)

During the calm seasons this is a clarion-call-verse, but what about in the times through the cloud-bank just ahead?

When the birds head into the adversity of unclear skies--the kind with the whipping winds--then they want the strongest flier in the front. They also rotate the leader out of that place on a regular basis, since that is the bird taking the full brunt of the most harsh winds to give the flock a sure direction.

Fellowship in the Spirit is the same as we look to the Lord.  He always takes the first-hit of the wind for us--no blast is too big for Him. First, He holds His Dear Ones instilling new strength into initially frightened and flapping wings. When we enter into the mists of confusion, the storms of adversity, the pelting hail of wounding, the gloom of sadness--He is always there just waiting for our receiving of His tenderlovingkindness. He does not want to see us grounded, and His flight manual is always with us in his Scriptural love letter, and in His tender songs both in the night, and at full noon.

But also our flying mates are given to surround us and to keep us on course. Their prayers are a fragrance that helps us find safe land by the perfume going up to the One who answers prayers. Their exhorting words come as the wisest triage that could only be supernaturally given, knowing just what is needed, and in the best order. How else would they know just what to do to help us stay buoyant except by the One who made flight? The good works come with His Name in love stamped all over them. So often the sweet servants only want us to be sure to see Him in it--like the bird in the front just before retiring to the back.

Tonight I find myself somewhere between full star-burst sunlight, and the dense cloud roll. From this place there is birdsong filling my heart, even in adversity, since the Lover of My Soul has told me to look up and see His mighty markings--their design breathtaking--under whose wings I have come to seek refuge.

A Steady Eye

 

There are times when the light, during any time of the day, can astound me as it illuminates Scripture. Let me show you the verse that this sunset image flickered at me asking for illustration: "The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men." (Psalm 11:4)

When I saw this eye in the heavens heading towards its setting place, I felt great peace. There was no terror, nor intrusion over being watched. It was an eye that was steady for the truth, and I needed that in a day that had been darkened with empty talk. My camera has taught me how important it is to have a steady hand, but these last lights on this day had brought me the message of a steady eye and how important it is to a having a vision.

The steady eye of the Lord watching over me by His goodness informs all the contours upon which His light falls to my great delight. And I want to see through His vision for me. How can I learn to have a steady eye? How can I love with the grace and truth of such a vision? I can know that His eyes are the protection that can never come from any other view of my world. They are the love that is the overflow of all others.

When I thought about a test from His eyelids I tightened up a bit. Tests can bring the pacing anxiety of performance--the desire to get it perfect. And then I thought about what it is that the eyelids do--they blink to keep the eye moist for better clarity of sight. He really wants to see me--at my deepest places--where my heartstrings are tied to the eyes, those open panes to our soul. My life, and how He has made me, is such a fascinating story to Him that the One who is the Storyteller and the Story wouldn't want to miss a piece of mine. And so His beautiful blinking eyelids keep me in focus and help me to see better--not to pass a test, but to learn better how to probe His Truth--the very person of His Son named Jesus. Passing a test is nothing if there is not wisdom that flows from it.

A halo in the sky, around the golden sun setting gave me the glorious message of His steady eye. I may never get to see it again in this way, but the capture here was given to share. May you revel in the Eyes that love you from His holy temple. May your story be His grand devotional for each new dawn and dusk!

Children's Praise in the Key of Wonder

This morning I heard the same blessed children's songs that I expect upon the breeze--better than birdsong! They always strike me as the background music for a day's beginning that brings me back to the core of joy. Like rarefied praise music, the songs are a testing of the range of a delightful squeal, the giggles that accompany finding ones own gait, the rhythms to fit a bounce-ball game, shouts that come from the unexpected, and a bawl bringing adults at their swiftest pace.

But this morning, some aberrant wind brought the anthem to my heart with an unusual sadness. Was it last night's news? Could it be that I wanted to freeze time for them--wrong-headed woman that I can be? Somehow the sorrow was tied-up in their natural wonderment, the genius of their little hearts to choose play first, the beginnings of their language that had so few of the awful words of hatred yet, the heights of the sounds they could make because each one had an opera of joy in their chests.

I rested in what I knew to be true; It was something that Jesus said, resonating for the generations: "...Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter at all." (Mark 10:14-15)

It consoled me to the depths. Jesus said that we could always come to Him if we just kept upon our hearts the lessons of childwonder! To wake up with a certainty of discovery, to keep a skipping gratitude in our hearts, to find the lyricism of meeting our mates, to be astounded over newness, to voice our speech and thoughts as uplifting, and to run for sure refuge to the swiftest of Parents when a holler is the sound of our cry--these were the ways to grow-up.

The next passage in Mark--10:16 says: "And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them." I was at such a place as I saw Him enkindle each little-one whom I love from my neighborhood with His touch of blessing.