My story

Finding Hope in the Passing and Gaining of Time

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 3 Comments

Clock.TimeGainedThe clock ticks. Time passes.

It sits on the shelf in my library. I never wanted a formal living room — I just didn’t see the need for one. I like turning the pages of books, and we had all collected quite a few over the years, so we set a goal to — one day — make that barren room a library. Today it is … rolling ladder, hourglass, floor globe, classics and all.

The ticking of the clock takes me to thoughts, experiences, cultures, worlds and places I might never visit. Time passes, but it does so in a different dimension.

The hands on the clock move, and the sugar-white grains of sand flow through the bulb of the hourglass. I’m getting older, but time doesn’t seem to be passing by and running out. Time seems to be passing by and gaining.

How can that be?

I know … sounds crazy, but it isn’t. If I reflect back on my life a decade ago, there never seemed to be enough time. … never enough time to finish what needed to be done, therefore, there was very little time left over to take on what I might have wanted to have done.

Life changes. Is there less to do today? Is there less to finish now, a decade later?

No. If I answer that honestly, there are probably even more things on the plate of life.
… more to finish,
… more that needs to be done,
… more that I wish to experience
… more that I want to have done.

Blessings. They fill the plate. Even with all the things on the plate, blessings heap it high and pile over the sides.

The mundane items,
the “needs to be done” items,
the “have to do it now” items …
… they share space on that plate with the “want to do it” items,
the “I can’t wait to do it” items,
and the “what a blessing” items.

Visible — some more than others — are also the “I don’t want to deal with this” items and the “really, God?” items.

It’s a jumbled smorgasbord.

That plate, though, is seasoned with wisdom. It’s garnished with discernment. It sits on a charger of faith, and it is seated at a place setting of blessings.

… and those blessings? Time taken to recognize them, to appreciate them and to give thanks for them seems to slow down the ticking of that clock on the shelf.

How can that be?

My youngest just celebrated a teenaged birthday that places him at the point of straddling youth and manhood in one spot? I see it in his body, in his mind and in his choices. How can that be? Where has time gone? Has it been lost to who he was when I held him, nursed him and comforted him? Or, has it been gained when I take a moment to realize who he is becoming, and when I see — right before my eyes — a glorious glimpse of what his future may hold?

Time used to mean yesterday, today, tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. Time is still all of those things, but, these days, it’s also the decades ago, the yesterdays, the challenges, the memories, the hurts, the healings, the smiles, and the heartaches. It’s also the hopes, the dreams and the eternity that is yet to come.

Time doesn’t stand still, but time has come to mean breathing in and breathing out in an attitude of opportunity. Time has been multiplied through knowing it all has a season of worthiness … something to be gained, something to be grabbed hold of, something to be worked for good.

Time is gained when we live a life appreciating the blessings.
Time is gained when we live a life learning from our challenges.
Time is gained when we live a life with expectant hope of what is to come.

The clock ticks. The hands move. Time passes. Time is gained.

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The Gratefulness Elixir

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 1 Comment

Elixir.COMPRESSED

I’ve been sick for the last few days. There’s nothing like a quick-onset illness to stop one in their tracks.

I coughed a few times while getting settled for bed on Monday night. On Tuesday morning, I wasn’t feeling quite myself when I was getting ready to head to my women’s Bible study. I needed to drop something off at my daughter’s place after the study was over, and I realized on my drive home that my body wasn’t quite right.

When I walked into the house, I immediately went to the freezer to get a couple of quarts of homemade, concentrated chicken broth. I chopped two enormous sweet onions, a dozen carrots, a head of celery, and I quick-defrosted a pound of chicken breasts. It all went into a soup pot with some garlic and salt to start my elixir. (I added lots of kale, chard and spinach later.)

By the time my prep was done, I knew there would be no stopping whatever ailment was overtaking me — chills were beginning to set in. I felt a sense of immediacy about getting a few things done, as the last time I had this feeling, I wasn’t myself again until six weeks later.

Thankfully, I am coming out of this one much faster. Being sick is never fun, but it does present us with opportunities to appreciate, reflect, pray and ponder.

My guys were all here to take care of me. They brought me glass after glass of icy water with a lime slice, they kept the house quiet for me, and they made me what little food I felt like eating whenever I asked for it. I’m grateful for my family.

My pup provided me with her always-unconditional love, not wanting to leave my bed or my side when I managed to make it out to the sofa in the family room. It also seemed like one of the cats wanted more attention from me during my downtime. The personality contrasts between the “let me just be near you” from the dog and the “puh-lease just scratch me more and more” from the cat are startling, but it made me realize I was calling on my family to take care of me during this time in the same way the cat was calling on me to rub him more than usual. I’m grateful for the pets.

Although not often, I was on the computer to check email and social media. A number of friends and family members sent me messages or texts to check in, sent well-wishes or sent their prayers. I’m grateful for my friends.

I wasn’t able to attend my mid-week Bible study, but I still felt alert enough to spend some time in the Word and work on some study homework. I’m grateful for the desire to know Him more.

There are always blessings around us. When the busyness has to stop or slow down due to an unexpected illness, circumstance or bump in the road, there are still reasons to be thankful.

Chicken soup can be a wonderful elixir, but so can gratefulness.

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Finding Hope in the Year of Trust

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 1 Comment

Romans 1513.TRUST.Copy

So, we’re just over a week into 2014. How are you doing with your resolutions?

As you might have read in my last post, I resolved not to make resolutions. My desire has been to follow the Spirit’s leading to make changes in my life and to not depend on a calendar to make the decision for me.

Instead of resolutions, I’ve resorted to spending time in thought and prayer to see where the Lord might be leading me. Doing so has led to naming my years and working on His leadings whenever they occur.

“Trust” has been repeating itself to me over the last many weeks. Pastoral messages, verses that stand out in my reading, blogs that seem to jump out at me, conversations with family members, even billboards (yes, really!) have all been communicating simple messages of trust to me. My quiet time and prayer time have confirmed to me the need to work on my walk with the Lord in this area, and I feel it is where He would desire my focus.

2014 – The Year of Trust

It’s official!

In 2013’s Year of Hope, Jeremiah 29:11 became my key verse.

Jeremiah 29:11:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV)

There were aspects of 2012 (the Year of Obedience) which I needed to leave behind me and others on which I needed His help in building a future during 2013. The wonders of the Jeremiah verse made me smile with expectant hope every time I read the words, so it worked its way into my heart, my head, my memory and my hopes for 2013.

After a lot of prayer, some reading, some translation reviews and quite a bit of study in the Greek text, I am feeling good about my key verse for 2014 to go along with the Year of Trust. It’s another verse which seems to be making me smile with expectant hopes.

Romans 15:13:
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (NIV)

You see, it is the “God of hope” who offers us the ability to hope expectantly, because time and time again, He IS ALWAYS and HAS ALWAYS been shown to be true to His promises. He inspires hope within us, and He provides hope for us.

The joy and peace which fill us come from knowing and understanding — but not always fully understanding — how He has worked together our past to bring about blessings in our present. Knowing His character and His promises brings about a deep joy and peace within the depths of our being, because we can TRUST in Him to continue to do the same for us in our future.

Do you overflow with hope?
Do I?
Yes and no to both!

It is IN HIM which I desire to trust so greatly that it will be HIS joy, HIS peace, and HIS hope which overflow from me due to the work and the wondrous power of the Holy Spirit who resides in me. I feel as though 2013 was a year in which I felt a lot of this — and one in which I demonstrated some of this — but it is an unfinished work, because I still lack a level of trust in His promises.

I will always be an unfinished work on this side of His Heavens, and so will you. He will never be finished with me, but I desire to do my part in seeking Him and in trusting Him by knowing Him even more.

No matter what our circumstances may be, we live for, serve, love, are disciplined by, are blessed by, are shaped by, worship, praise and walk with a God who is so much bigger than any of it.

I need to trust that.

I need to trust Him.

2014 is the Year of Trust.

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Finding Hope in the New Year’s Resolution Resolution

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 2 Comments

NewYear'sResolution.HS.2 - Copy (2) - Copy

I don’t know about you, but I am looking at my calendar in utter amazement. Twenty-thirteen has just flown by, and we are almost ready to cross over into 2014.

Many of you are hard at work creating yet another list you’ll check twice as you are resolving to be less naughty and to be more nice — at least to yourself.

We create resolution lists about exercising more, eating less, cleaning out our inbox, making more time for others, etc., etc., etc., and, for at least a month, we do a pretty good job at what we’ve resolved.

Do you still have your 2013 list?
How did you do?
Why doesn’t it last? Only YOU can answer that question about your own resolutions!
You made them, so why didn’t you stick with them?

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. I used to, but many years ago, I resolved not to make resolutions.

I’d make good ones with good intentions where the results would be good for me and good for others around me. Even with the simplicity of them, I’d still fail at some point during the year. I got tired of failing at keeping them. The well-intentioned list became a list of glaring failures. I had enough of those in my life without adding to them each year, so I quit making resolutions for New Year’s.

So … now that you think I have a party-pooper attitude toward resolution-making, are you wondering what I do actually do?

It’s really no big deal.
I still kiss my husband at the stroke of midnight.
I still raise a glass of whatever to ring in the new year.
I still resolve that the next year will be different.
I just don’t make a list.

For me, resolving not to make resolutions isn’t about refusing to change. A list doesn’t create change.

Change happens when the heart, the head and the Spirit connect. All of them.

Thing is … that rarely happens because a list has been written. And, if it does, the results are short-lived and are rarely long-lasting.

What has worked for me is listening to the Spirit within me leading me toward a change. (You’ll know it’s Him, because it’ll/He’ll keep showing up.) I then will pray about it — sometimes for quite a long time. Sometimes those prayers are whiney ones (because I don’t like change), sometimes they are “You need to help me” ones, and sometimes they are “if this is Your will” ones. Sometimes the head gets in gear before the heart; sometimes the heart has to convince the head.

When the Spirit leads and then the head and heart follow, amazing changes happen. Really amazing changes.

Isn’t that what we’re all really looking for?

My other issue with New Year’s Resolutions is with the timing. I see no reason to make changes on January 1st just because the calendar year is a new one. If change needs to happen — or if we are being led to change — it won’t just happen on January 1st. It might be January 21st, it might be March 2nd, it might be August 5th, or it might even be November 19th.

It’s my preference to allow the Spirit to lead me instead of the Gregorian calendar. I’ve just found more success that way. We need to be prepared to get on-board and change when change calls.

Now … some of you know me, and you know that over the last few years, I have named my years. This officially started for me in 2012.

In 2011, I went through some pretty terrible emotional tribulations. My world was turned upside-down in many ways through the choices of a few others close to me. Changes in faith, trust, relationships, truths, perspectives and hopes were on a rollercoaster ride, but when it all happened, I resolved — right away — to walk in more faith. I didn’t consciously choose to name 2011, but looking back, if I had named it, it would have been the Year of Faith.

The resolution to get through 2011 walking in more faith led to me naming 2012 the Year of Obedience. The faith journey I clung to in 2011 brought to light a need for me to learn to be obedient to the Lord. I think obedience is an ever-learning, ever-growing and ever-needed trait, but 2012 was fruitful for me in that area, and many blessings were realized as I worked on my walk with Him.

Through obedience, hope blossomed. So when 2013 rolled around, I felt led to name it the Year of Hope. Most of us think of hope in terms of a wondering hope, but this was an expectant and trusting hope built on my walk with the Lord. In the Year of Obedience, I began to see glimmers of hopes I had desired, prayed for and yearned for become realities so much greater than what I had asked or “wonderingly hoped for.” I wondered if it were possible to surrender my wondering hopes to Him to see what He might be able to do with them … and He awed me beyond my belief. Many of my wondering hopes became expectant hopes in 2013 as I began to trust in His hand, His blessings and in His will for my life.

And so, here we are, ready to cross over into 2014.

Faith, Obedience and Hope have been good years, but there is still so much more of a work He needs to do in me. I feel the Spirit leading me to trust more. In my readings, my quiet time, my prayers, my praises, my celebrations, my obedience, my hope, and in my faith, trust keeps coming forward. So, I have resolved to name 2014 the Year of Trust, and to work on walking in His will in this area of my life.

His promises and His blessings are many. I know that, believe that and do trust in that when I read His Word. My expectant hope for 2014 is to learn to trust Him on a new level … one well beyond words.

However you resolve to handle your resolutions for the new year, may you find what He has planned for you … not just what you are looking for.

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Finding Hope in His Blessings

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

Numbers 6.24-26.COMPRESSED

My pastor is taking us through the book of Numbers in the Bible. I know … right …? Numbers …

I thought the same thing when he told us which book would be next after we finished Leviticus — a great book exalting His holiness and communicating His call for us to also be holy. To my pastor’s credit, he jokingly acknowledged that the book of Numbers isn’t typically considered one of the most exciting books of the Bible.

I know I’ve read through the book (ok, skimmed …) at one time or another, but it’s not a book I’ve ever given any time to deep study as a whole. I recently did go through parts of it while doing a study on the tabernacle, and I learned a few amazing things from Numbers in that study which I had never known. With the exception of the pieces I studied, I think my overall impression of Numbers was that it was…, dare I say it? … boring?

I no longer think that way about the book. We’re just a few chapters into it, and, as we wrap up one week’s lesson, I can hardly wait until next week’s lesson gets here.

I want to take you to one section of Numbers and just share a few verses with you. Chances are, it’s a passage you’ve probably heard at one time or another … in a church at the end of a service, at the end of a wedding, perhaps even at a funeral.

Numbers 6:24-26 says,

“The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”

Sound familiar? To me, too!

I grew up in a very small town in central Pennsylvania. My parents attended a Presbyterian church there, so I did, too. Each Sunday at the close of the service, our pastor — clothed in a rustic grayish-white robe tied with a bold cord — would raise his hands, stand before us and recite these words before walking down the steps from the chancel, down the aisle of the church and out to the lobby to greet each church member before they made their way home.

I like familiarity, so when my current pastor read these words, memories of church as a child just flooded back. I could see my childhood pastor with his salt-and-pepper beard wearing that robe saying these words to us. He said them every week, and it became a ritual I expected to hear.

Perhaps, sometime in the future, we can dig into the deepest of meanings of this blessing, but, for now, I just want to share a few things with you based upon my initial feelings on the surface of this passage … no study, no word origins, no commentary … just how it speaks to me and quickly captures my thoughts as I read it without studying the depth of it yet …

First, this blessing is FROM GOD and it was given by the LORD to Moses for Moses to share with Aaron and his sons to bless the Israelites throughout the generations to come.

“The LORD bless you and keep you”:  Remember, the LORD spoke these words, so when the words were to be conveyed to His people, the words were spoken through the priests, but they were directly from God. This verse tells me He is saying He is here to walk with me, to kneel beside me to serve me, and to be with me as I walk with Him and serve Him.

“The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;”:  This verse tells me that HE has every intention of illuminating my life with His gracious and blessed presence, walking with me as I walk, and offering me his grace-filled forgiveness.

“The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”:  This verse tells me that not only is He going to do everything he’s already said he’s going to do in the previous two verses, but He’s going to watch me, give me his personal attention and — through whatever I have to go through  — He’s going to give me His peace with it.

What awes me about our God, is how He plants seeds in our lives and then
tends to those seeds,
waters those seeds,
nurtures those seeds,
breathes life into those seeds and
grows those seeds.
He then watches those seeds sprout, helps them to bear fruit and takes care of every detail necessary for the seeds to reproduce in abundance for the future.

YOU are that seed! I am that seed!

Despite times of drought, poor soil conditions, hibernation and a failure to produce on our part, He still ALWAYS does His part for those who love Him. He doesn’t let His children go despite our foolish efforts or stubbornness in relation to our obedience to Him. And, when we do mess up or when He does allow us to be tested through trials, He promises us over and over again in His Word that our good and His glory are capable of coming from all of it.

It’s no coincidence I am sitting in a church in the today studying these words, recalling times from the years ago yesterdays when the words were planted into me, and walking through a life where His promises and His blessings are carrying me through the tumultuous trials, yet still revealing His amazing grace through it all.

There are no coincidences. I’m seeing another seed sprouting from His Word. Praise be to Him!

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