Sudden Impact

This past weekend, I went on a women's retreat with 50 other women from our church.  It was my first one, and we traveled to Lake Arrowhead which is up in the mountains of California. The picture I've included is one I took on my way out.  It was beautiful, but do you know I didn't appreciate the beauty of it until I was back home and driving our son to school this morning?  I topped a nearby hill and looked up at the snow covered mountains where I stayed over the weekend.  My breath almost completely taken away by the sight of it all, I pointed in excitement to our son.  "Look, Ashton - that's where mommy stayed this weekend!"  It was truly a beautiful sight, and as if hit in the head by a snowball from God above, I was suddenly impacted by an overwhelming appreciation for a beauty I didn't see before. It was only one of the many "sudden impact" moments I've had since last Friday when I left.   

Be Free

 After what has been a spiritually frustrating day, I decided to release some of the heaviness into a blog entry.  I couldn't.  The words weren't there.  I stared hopelessly at the screen waiting for something to come.  It never did.  Reflecting back over my own set of frustrations throughout the day, I felt tears begin to wet my face.  Finally, I asked God to bring out in me what He wanted to say, and within minutes I started to write.  This wasn't the first time I found myself staring blankly at the monitor while I waited for something from God to rise within my spirit.  It has happened before, but until today I hadn't made the connection of why -As it turns out, I can't write unless I'm free and I'm not free unless I'm not wrapped up in me.

The Day of Small Beginnings

Have you ever noticed that you're the least successful person in the room at an event or gathering?  Let's say you walk in to your ten or twenty year reunion and you're surrounded by doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs; yet there you stand - still wandering through the "undecided" realm of life.  You're kind of in-between jobs right now and as for future plans, you're just not having any luck with making things happen.  As Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion floats through your mind, you actually contemplate duplicating Romy and Michelle's plot to hatch a story about a success that doesn't exist.  On the other hand, maybe at that same gathering you're the most successful.  You reside in the upper east section of town with your spouse, two perfect children, and small mansion while enjoying a seven figure income from your employment with one of Forbes' top ranked companies. Your picture may even be splashed across newspapers and magazines.  Have you also ever stopped to notice that regardless of which group you fall into, we all came from the same small beginning?

A Little Good News Today

On a day that we've finalized our decision to shut off the cable, I appropriately came across Anne Murray's song A Little Good News (for lyrics, see link below) and remembered not only how much I love her voice, but also why I'm okay with closing this particular window into the world. There is so much hate and heartache in the media!  Well, we've been casually tossing the idea to cut the cable for weeks now, but hadn't taken any action until this afternoon when we finally made the call.  They shut if off tomorrow morning between eight and ten.  Though a part of me would like to be out in the living room filling my last cable filled night with whatever non-junk show (believe it or not, they do exist) I can find, I opted to write about the logic behind our decision instead.  In the words of Anne Murray, I decided to write a little good news today. 

Casting My Cares

Have you ever been in a place where you know you need to cast your cares, but the minute you say "I cast my cares on you Lord," those said cares come back and bite you on the hand that cast them?  For me, it has been one of those weeks.  Actually, it has been one of those months thus far.  Throughout the last few months, I've been on an almost spiritual high with God.  Filled with a joyous euphoria, I was intimately in tune with God's presence in my life.  I didn't know exactly where I was going, but I knew it was with God so I trusted completely, knowing it was somewhere good.  Well, January ended and February began.  With this month came the accompaniment of an unwelcome strife in my spirit - not all the time, just enough to be noticeable and disheartening from time to time.  During the preceding months, I had been able to get alone with God without too much noise from the outside world, but as the holidays ended, normal routine resumed and outside noise picked up like the collection of honking cars on a Los Angeles freeway.  God started asking me to put into practice what He taught me while we were alone those last few quiet months.  In doing so, I've won some and lost some, but through both victory and defeat, I'm learning just how much more of Him I need  - and that casting our cares isn't just about saying the words. 

Bloody and Bruised - Someone to Blame

A couple of weeks ago I listened to Anne Beiler (she is the Anne from Auntie Anne's Pretzels) and her husband Jonas tell a painful story of how they lost their two year old daughter in a tragic accident many years ago.  How did she die?  At the wheel of a large farm tractor driven by Anne's own sister.  With tears in my eyes, I listened in amazement while Anne told their story of pain, love, and forgiveness.  She never once blamed her sister for what happened to her child.  I had listended to this very story once before maybe six months ago, but when I saw it on again a couple of weeks ago, something made me watch, though after that day I didn't think of it again until tonight when I saw my own son bloody and bruised as my husband led him towards me. 

One Moment in Time

I've recently been finding myself taking mental note of specific moments throughout the day, and several days ago, I found myself in a moment that I didn't want to end. The phrase "one moment in time" popped into my mind and I knew it would ultimately be a title to some random day's blog entry, but I didn't know when.  Today seems to be that day.  The moment I found myself in was a hug with my son.  His birthday is this week and though he's only turning six, I felt an overwhelming sense of both happiness and sadness and I didn't want to let him go.  I felt my eyes start to fill with water as I hugged him tightly and I realized then that I wasn't just in a day or month of some given year;  I was in a very special moment in time.