Snapshots in Time of My Life

My tears falling on my cat's fur as I stroke him singing the hymn "Glorious Day."

"What a day that will be, when my Jesus I shall see;

When I look upon His face; the One who saved me by His grace.

And He'll take me by the hand and lead me through the Promised Land.

What a Day, Glorious Day that will be."

A snapshot in time of my life: the convergence  of grief, comfort and hope.

"The sufferings of this present time cannot compare with the glory that will be revealed in us."

Romans 8:18

 

Mothers with Swords

I have never thought of myself as a warrior. Now I do. I have come back from battle where I was wounded, at the point of waving the white flag, but I was rescued and delivered and I have come back from the brink, bloodied, but fighting.

We are engaged in a war and we wage battles everyday. 
The war is real. It is a spiritual one and the casualties of these territorial battles, will be our children, if we surrender. 
This, I have learned from my recent skirmish:

Know the enemy.
Your child is not your enemy.  He is the one you have to fight for, to defend. The prince of this world is on a mission to steal, kill and destroy our sons and daughters,  the peace of our homes and our marriages.
Know that the enemy is a liar. He will convince you that you are a failure. That you should give up. 
He will exploit your weaknesses.
He will undermine your power and influence over your children's lives. He will play with your mind.

Use God's Strategy for Battle
The strategy I was using was ineffectual against my enemy. I was using my human strength and wisdom, not the wisdom and strength that comes from the Lord. I have to use God's methods and follow His ways. The battlefield is in the mind. It is fought and won on our knees.

Use the Right Weapons
Since we do not wage war with flesh and blood, we should use the weapons of spiritual warfare.
The belt of truth and the sword of God's Word to fight the enemy. Faith to shield us from  his arrows, the helmet of our salvation as our protection from any mortal wounds, and  unceasing prayer powered by the Spirit of God.  

The battle cry for us mothers is this--- Who will stand in the gap? Who will fight the bloody battles for our children? 

If we do not stand in the gap, who will? Unsheath your swords, put on your armors and let us do battle. We will not tire, for we have already won the war through our Commander Jesus Christ.

My Father's Garden

Outside my door is a garden
That belongs to my Father and I; 
He splashes it with a purple-toned theme:
Of lavenders, fuchsias, violets, and peach's.

He breathes on the gardenia and they awaken
He whispers to the roses and they bloom
He sprinkles them with their own perfume
And fills the air with breath and bloom.

Life unfolds before my eyes...
Leaf-buds peeking,orchids waving,
Blades of lemongrass bending,
Zebra longwings flitting,sweet-nectar sipping;

Squirrels on branches in playful chitter.
Pigeons, bluejays, grackles twitter.

On whimsical flight from flower to flower--- a leafwing butterfly;
Leaf-laden boughs caressed by the breeze---my dreamy lullaby.
Birdsong and wind chimes--- a calming reverie; 
Long-armed trees reach out to meet me.


Where sight falls and ears turn
in my Father's garden: 
a glimpse, a sound; a holy feeling;
in sunlight, in air, in shadows passing;
In turn of leaf, in blush of flower,
in sighing wind, in showers falling---
(To the garden I go).
My Father is calling.

Letter to a Friend Who is Going on a Journey

(For G. recently diagnosed with cancer.)

My dear friend and sister in the Lord, 

Yesterday you confided that you received the  invitation from the one who loves you to come away:
"Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me,"  the letter said. Song of Songs 2:10

Yes, it is He---for whom your soul longs-- who is calling and your heart says "yes." But you are quivering. You are afraid.   

You do not know where you are going, so you are afraid.  Perhaps, you are afraid because you think you are not ready. Perhaps, other loves are calling you and you hesitate to leave. 

But you have been yearning for Him all your life, have you not? 
In your heart of hearts, you know you do. But all of these other loves have been keeping you away.  But this "Jealous One" that you speak of, loves with a love that will not let go. He wants you. His desire is for you. He stood at your door one day and banged harder so you can hear Him. You finally opened the door and He asks you. And you decide, of your own free will:Yes,I will go.

You are on the brink, ready to step out into this great and fearful voyage. You know, as I do, that it won't be easy. You will come upon valleys of darkness and deep silence, where your enemy is waiting for you and your Beloved seems distant, or absent. This is how you will learn to live faith. This is when you need the prayers of your people to lift you up. You are not alone. We are with you--as God is with us-to carry you through. 

"Your journey has been charted in advance, the trail has been blazed, and the path is engraved in your heart. Your path---the path set out for you--was born into you when you were born into the kingdom of God...the way is Jesus Himself--when you walk in Him, you have found your way...Bring nothing with you except a tender and teachable spirit."1

Surely, He will fulfill His purposes for you. He will reveal His power through you. Like a refiner's fire, out of your jagged rock, all the dross will be burned to bring out a pure, and holy gem of beauty, a vessel of His grace, created and refined for His glory. For this reason you were made. For this reason He is calling you now;for this reason you are going away. 

And as you are getting yourself ready for the journey, He tells you to trust Him. 
"But now, this is what the Lord says--
He who created you, O Jacob,
He who formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you, 
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you:
When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; 
the flames will not set you ablaze."

Isaiah 43:12

Listen to His voice in the stillness, and the pain. 
"Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know."  Jeremiah  33:3

Embrace his nearness; dwell in His love. He is the Lover of your soul. 
"But as for me, the nearness of my God is my good." Psalm 73:28

The one who loves you has, Himself, planned this for you from the very beginning. A chapter of your story is about to unfold. 

"Blessed are those whose strength is in you, 
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

Psalm 84:5


Your long-lost, now-found friend and sister in the Beloved,
Ann

P.S. 

Thank you for inviting me to share your journey with you.
1 From the book "He Restores My Soul" by Jennifer Kennedy Dean

Diane's Story

A whole clan is mourning the passing of one of their own today. They are mourning Diane. 
It is perhaps more accurate to say that the grieving had started long before today, going back to that very day she was found with a cancer for which there was no cure. And the grieving will continue in the days, and months and years ahead. 
After a while, that raw, gaping wound that right now is ragged around the edges, will heal. 
After a while, it will somehow become a constant ache that will never go away. 

Like someone looking in through a glass I watched her story unfold. At the news of her imminent death, I had a rare moment of spiritual clarity: 
Diane's story is the Colincos' story, 
is the story of the church in this broken, messed-up world.
"Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him."
"Though He slay Diane, yet will we hope in Him."
"Though He slay us, yet will we hope in Him."

Diane's story is an echo across the millennia of Job's story:
"The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. 
Blessed be the Name of the Lord!"

Diane's story is a collective story of her parents', sisters', brothers', nieces', nephews', friends' stories.

It is a story of a faith that cannot be shaken, built on the Rock of Ages.

It is a story that is always, will always be told with an undercurrent of hope, 
of hope that rings true because it is grounded on the truth of a resurrection.
It is a story of patience in affliction, 
Courage in battle, 
Endurance in adversity, 
Of sacrificial love. 
Of hope that never ends...

This, I learned, from Diane's story: 
when a member of Christ's body hurts, the whole body hurts. 
When a member of Christ's body suffers, the whole body suffers. 
And we are all carried by the strength of each other's prayers.

After  I have pounded my "why's?" at God's door, in a moment of exhausted silence I hear that still, still voice that grew louder ever louder--- Diane's solitary voice, joined by another voice, and still another, all these voices in a deafening swell, a majestic chorus: "Though He slay me, yet, will I hope in Him."

Diane's story will be told as part of a bigger, grander story that we are all a part of.

Diane's story is the Colinco's story, 
is the story of all of God's children 
in this broken, messed-up world, 
who, by patient endurance, 
unwavering  faith, 
unstoppable love,
unshakeable hope 
put all of God's enemies 
to shame. 

Hallelujah!!

A Daily Manifesto

"To be or not to be shackled by the grind of living."

There is a sense of incredulity mixed with anxiety, that I watch the days go by... like  leaves falling from a tree. 

The passage of time astonishes me.  Why so?
  
C.S. Lewis puts it this way:"Notice how we are perpetually surprised by Time. (How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!") In heaven's name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal."

Being perpetually astonished at time...
In my perpetual astonishment at time  I desire to be acutely aware of the brevity & unpredictability of my life.  And in my awareness of its very brevity & unpredictability, to live it with purpose and meaning.
Knowing that I am here only for a short time should spur me to overcome the daily tyrannies that keep me from doing the essential things: the ones of real, eternal value.

Starting this year, I decided to live intentionally; to not be bogged down by the call of the laundry, the grocery-shopping, the cleaning, appointments, events, and to sit down and do the things that all these years have been pushed to the back of the list, bumped over and over again by the urgent.

I, henceforth, refuse to be tyrannized  by the urgent.
I will seek to  find meaning to every moment of my existence, to treasure the gems that are waiting at every corner,to exhaust my talents, to listen harder, to  reflect more, and to be really still. 

And what is even surprising, God gives me the grace to live life unshackled. He has  allowed me to accomplish -- in the span of two months--what had been left undone for the past several years.

In his short life on earth, Jesus Christ accomplished his mission. It was He himself who said:  "Let the dead bury their dead."

So it is a big countdown. Days, and weeks and months and years... we will get older, our children will eventually grow up and  move away...the last leaf will fall and we will fly away.

How,then, shall we live?

A Holy Thursday Meditation: On Humility, Suffering and Love

God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, 
even in  His eternal power, glory and holiness, 
is not a God who is beyond our reach. 
He stooped down to the lowliest of the low and died the most humiliating of deaths.

From the humblest and poorest of births: a feeding trough for a crib, a stable for a shelter, 
to  a wandering life, "without a place to lay his head," 
to the ultimate injustice  meted upon Him, 
to suffering like a lamb under the hand of His oppressors,
to  dying naked on a cross, 
and buried in a borrowed tomb. 

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 
Who being God, did not consider being God something to be grasped,
But made Himself of NO REPUTATION,
and being found in human likeness,
HUMBLED himself unto death, even DEATH on a CROSS ..."  
Philippians 2:5-8

God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe stands at the door and knocks.
"Here I am, I stand at the door and knock,
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in and eat with him and he with me."  Revelations 3:20

God knocks at our door. He will not impose His love upon us.  He is asking for us to open the door.
He gives us the freedom to choose, that we might choose Him. 

Without free will, love is not possible.
and suffering is inevitable in Love.