Tag Archives: spiritual journeys

Life is Messy

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Oh, my friends! What a world we have come to live in! Not only have we only just begun to crawl out from under a global pandemic, our own country has faced huge discord among its people in recent weeks, resulting in freezing assets, misguided information, and rally cries for dissension. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Europe has gone to war. Power-hungry men are puffing up their chests in attempts to gain … something. And the innocent are suffering. I have no words. In fact, I skipped a week or two of posts because I am beginning to question it all. Do words have value anymore?

Is it worth my two cents if I choose not to post my personal views and take sides? Is it worth it to “remain neutral” and bring some light-hearted script to encourage when the world is in such darkness? Last week I received a new book on the Psalms (check out my Instagram reel here) and I am looking forward to doing some doodling as I delve into it. The Psalms were never my go-to book. I think King David was a bit bipolar. His words always seemed far too “up and down” for me. One minute praises — the next, deep laments and evil wishes to dash his enemies. Recently I heard this about the Psalms: that you don’t truly know the light until you’ve been in the dark places. I suspect that is a very true statement. And the Psalms hit it on the head.

A couple weeks ago was my eldest daughter’s birthday. Now, she will be the first to admit that her culinary skills are not top-notch. She has a few basic recipes under her belt and she is happy to repeat them week by week. However, she wanted to try a few new things for her birthday dinner. Fine. No problem, sweetie, I will help you shop for ingredients and make a few suggestions, but the work is yours. The food was great. Everything tasted wonderful. The problem with amateur chefs? My kitchen was a disaster! Every dish, every appliance, every spoon and platter was well used and left for dead on every counter space left available. Sigh. These are memories. We can clean up later.

Life, like cooking, is sometimes messy. Challenges abound. Sometimes we have to be under fire to grow, change and “glow”. Life is not meant to be perfect and predictable.

“Governments make plans, but the Lord checks them. He does not let people do everything that they want to do. The plans that the Lord makes will always happen. His ideas will always be with us.”

Psalms‬ ‭33:10-11‬ ‭(EEB)

It’s pretty clear — God doesn’t let people do everything they want. The governments — and the common people, make plans; plans they think are best, but only God has the last say. None of us have been through this life before. We cannot predict the outcome or guarantee that our methods for living will be the most ideal ones. We are like my daughter… following the recipe hoping we interpret the instructions well, and that our efforts will somehow resemble the glossy picture in the book. More often than not, we create a fairly good tasting, but messy delectable delight. This world is full of sin and it’s going to get messy. Life with God will require patience. But God is infinite and promises to bring good out of the mess. 

Photo Credit: Do it yourself from Scratch on WordPress

Perhaps you are like me, tired and at a loss for words about all the things that have been weighing on the world lately. Maybe it has lit a fire under you and your faith has been made stronger in the face of opposition. Maybe you are just trying to eat some good-tasting stuff and will deal with the clean-up later. Take heart to the assurance that “the plans that the Lord makes will always happen” and I don’t think He’s done with us just yet. Be blessed with the journey, friends.

A Simple Snowflake

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In the heart of another Canadian winter, we trudge through the streets after another snow flurry on our way home after a day of work. My beloved is a good winter driver. I am not a good winter passenger. I white-knuckle it as we brake behind the slow-moving vehicle ahead of us (I am acutely aware of his brake lights seemingly minutes before my driver is and I cannot fathom why he has not braked yet). Our city is still digging out from a huge deluge of snow that was dropped on us a week or so ago. And we are about to add to the snowbanks yet again. We finally talk about something other than Covid. Consequently, my mind wanders to the great mystery of the simple snowflake. The topic of this week’s muse.

Snow is obviously made from snowflakes. Tiny ice crystals that fall from the sky… and pile up so high that we must move mountains in order to carry on with our daily tasks. I cannot even fathom the number of individual snowflakes that one snowbank contains, let alone a city full of snowbanks, or the country …or the world’s snow! Mindboggling. Most people are aware of the fact that snowflakes have distinct shapes. We’ve all seen them on our clothing or windshield. Perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to see them under a microscope. Here’s a pretty one:

Photo via Caltech

Did you know this is also a snowflake?

They say that individual snowflakes can be classified into 80 some snow types? That is amazing! Our Creator is wonderful, isn’t He?! We simply can’t duplicate it. Here is a picture of artificial snow. Basically water droplets froze in the cool air and sprayed on the ski hills for our enjoyment… without the creativity:

You wanna hear another interesting tidbit of snowy inspiration? The ice crystals form when a water droplet freezes on a dust or pollen bit in the sky. Crystallization causes the ice to form into the symmetrical patterns we then classify based on those patterns. Each one is unique because of the twists and turns the dust particle makes on its way down from the atmosphere. Yup, we shovel dirt in the winter… it’s just covered in water. Oh, but how beautiful does that dawn of the new-fallen snow look from our windowsill? All white and pristine, before it gets tarnished by salt and grime and snow tires. The hubby made this remark as we turned the corner onto our street. Sure, I say, just happy to be home alive again from the treacherous trip. It’s beautiful… dirt and water piled high…

So, let’s make a little object lesson from our snow this week. In Psalm 51:7, David prays – “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Ever feel a little dirty on the inside? David could be our prime example of this object lesson. Yet, we are no less dirty. Our “specks of dust” twist and transform our ways and can pile up like the heaps of snow we shovel off the driveway. It has nowhere else to go. But, like that snowflake, God takes all that dirt… and covers it up to make something beautiful!

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”  Isaiah 1:18 Our pure and just God cannot be tarnished by our unholiness, but when covered through Jesus’ sacrifice we shall be as white as snow! Our dust has been covered and only the beauty remains. What a promise!

Oh, friends, these days of Covid and snow and winter and isolation have many of us tired and fed up. We are heavy-ladened with the burdens of just trudging through… literally! Alas, our hope is full and it covers the dirt completely! We need cleansing and some good old fashion scrubbing to revive us so that we will be as white as the snow. I’m looking forward to finding that little bit of magic in all this. The silver lining … or should I say the white lightning in the simplicity of some dirt and a water droplet.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

WONDER

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Photo by Nikola Johnny Mirkovic on Unsplash
Sitting alone in the dark solitude of our empty living room,
  sipping my morning coffee and looking out our front picture window
 into the distant panorama of a residential street that had yet to awaken,
  I listened to the empty silence of a cold winter's morning.
 The frozen landscape crackled with the winter's bitter wind... 
 a fridgid contrast to my warm blanket and hot drink.
 I couldn't help looking at everything and saying as God did, "It is good." 
Only my voice had a touch of wonder in it, 
 while His had only satisfaction. 
So many days are spent chasing obligations and deadlines and paycheques
 and nothing special seems to stand out worth remembering.
 But lockdowns and quarantines and five such minutes in my living room alone
 simply me and God, just being still and truly seeing, truly appreciating,
 are worth a lifetime of chasing.

It was written by me, but inspired by a devotional I recently read by Susan Lenzkes. It was a real experience but captured again as I read her words and tried to apply them to myself. As most of you know, my #wordoftheyear for 2022 is “magic”, so I have begun to actively seek out the moments of wonder and awe. To appreciate the little things. Facebook memories of my kids a hundred years ago. So cute all decked out for a Sunday morning service. Knowing we are safe and financially secure for the start of another year. Hating lockdowns and school online, but thankful that technology allows us education and the ability to connect with others. Full bellies. Warm houses and clean water.

So much we take for granted. So many wishes for this or that. I am reminded that life is really, really fragile. Tiny humans are born completely dependent. Many return to that state of complete dependence as we age. Time is not our friend. This fallen world and all the “bad” that is in it makes me wonder: “Why on earth?”

For some reason, Psalm 8 has been popping up in my world all this week. If you have time, look it up. David wondered “Why on earth?” too. I love learning about the idiosyncracies of this fabulous planet we live on. And all the creatures that share it with us. How inventive is our God who created every living thing? Yes, even one small virus who has the ability to mutate and change and manipulate an entire population of beings. He is in control, my friends! But it makes me wonder, like the psalmist, if God is in control of the big things like the universe and all the small things like corona viruses, then “what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” Somehow, He thinks we are worth it.

He looked at us, feeble humans, a little lower than the heavenly beings, and decided these made-from-dust creatures were worth loving and dying for. That you were worth dying for. That I was worth loving. Oh, the weight of those things! Wonder – full.

My wish for you and I this week is that we continue to be blessed in that realization. That we continue to seek for and see the wonder that is before us, behind us, and all around us. Will you join me as I look for it? Until next week, my friends!