I didn’t sleep well last night, but I got up early and spent some time in the Word. I realize daily how important that time is with God, and yet for some reason, I don’t give it enough weight in my life. Well, I read in Numbers 5 and 6, and was touched by...
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My boss keeps a blog, and I like how he does it. He doesn’t have to write about every single thing that happened in a day. He just picks a thing or two, and that is good for the day. Of course, his blog features his photography, which is always exceptional. Still, I like...
Read more →It’s been an up and down weekend, for some reason. This morning at church I was reminded largely as to why: I forget to let God and His Word anchor my life each day. I still too often get up and make everything about myself. Gayle was right when she told me that time,...
Read more →On the heels of the release of the new Dark Knight movie, my brother shared this clip with me. An instant comedy classic.
When I was in college, I read a handful of books that stuck with me as personally significant. One of them stuck with me simply because of its title. In a literature survey course one semester, we read the biography of Catholic social activist Dorothy Day, entitled “The Long Loneliness”. I don’t remember much...
Read more →It’s Friday. It is a good night for dancing.
Sally, where are you?
It’s only fitting that I pause for a moment tonight to commemorate the life of my Grandma Myrt. Myrtle Scruggs, my mother’s mother, a sweet and gentle woman except when behind the wheel, passed away last night, July 11, 2012, at about 20 till midnight Kansas time. My mom said her sister Sharon was...
Read more →I wish I hadn’t got that email.
Some dreams die hard.
When I was a teenager in high school, Michael W. Smith’s first and second albums provided the background soundtrack for much of my inner life. His ability to translate experiences and feelings into moving music helped me ride through a number of struggles and stressors, from dealing with inadequacy to losing friendships, from choosing to walk with God to coping with possible family tragedies. Fortunately, none of those tragedies panned out. But still, Michael’s music has continued to encourage and inspire me as the years have rolled past, and his early albums have remained fresh and continue to speak to my heart.
When I was in college, I somehow talked a girl friend into singing this song with me as a duet at an end of the year banquet for our college ministry group. My voice quaked, and I missed some notes, but practicing and singing this song out loud gave it added meaning to me (although, it might have lost some esteem to others there that night…).
Those of you who know me know that this year has been a year of trying to move on. I am working on it. On a weekend like this one, though, which is prolonged and in which I am spending extra time doing some soul-searching, I still fall back and deal with longing, and the questions that surround losing a loved one. It’s clear that, for them, time has moved on, and I am accepting that more. I think of her less often each week- although she does cross my mind daily.
To love someone means to accept their ‘Yes’es and ‘No’s, which is what I’ve had to do in this case. I have tried to honor a firm ‘No’, which has been pretty hard. And I have missed a pretty cherished friendship. Still, God is over all things- even the start and end of relationships- and I am also working on accepting that this end has been in His will. We both know Him and seek Him. What better place to park a broken friendship, than in His hands.
The relationship may be gone, but through prayer, I can still love her. Through Him.
And keep moving forward. Through Him.
A suitable song for this Monday morning.
“Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” ~Psalm 51:5 I’ve been reading Paul David Tripp’s little book “Whiter than Snow” off and on in the mornings for that moment of getting my eyes on God each day. It’s a slim volume with meditations on Psalm 51, David’s...
Read more →For whatever reason, today has been a day of snippets. While at work this morning, I had a number of moments where observations about shame rolled in- and I harvested as many of those as I could for a later post. Tonight, it was about dealing with self. With a rare evening home and...
Read more →Tonight I had an interesting experience, which was a good one, but one I’ve had a number of times before, and every time I have it, it tests me. I went to dance with our dance club friends at a local club for the bulk of the early evening, and then I went with...
Read more →“We who had sweet fellowship together walked in the house of God in the throng.” ~ Psalm 55:14 Tonight, I was honored to have a few friends from church and from my church small group over for dinner. The three have become special friends to me over the last year. Back in early summer...
Read more →Some days feel like a midnight pause at the single signaled intersection in a sleeping Kansas town. Winds swirl around you like a flood of memories while the sky is broad and heavy and roiling and moist and hoarse, and the wheat silently swaying in the surrounding farm fields whispers the names of longings and loves that have moved on through your life, and you realize you’ve been here before- and you’re not sure if you are coming, or going- or if you will ever get on out of this lonesome place.
Tonight, we spent the early part of the evening with Walter, saying goodbye. My sister’s exchange student, Walter departed this evening to head back home to China after spending a school year here in Albuquerque. My brother and his family, my parents, and my sister’s husband’s mother met Walter for dinner at Applebee’s near...
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