deeply and ever known

We roamed the beaches of western Michigan this weekend.

Sky, brilliant azure.

Sand, warm and soft between our toes.

Breeze, clearing our lungs and minds from the stressors of daily life.

Homes along the coast empty.

Shoreline, barren of other people.

Accustomed to crowded spring break beaches of southern Alabama, we loved having the shore all to ourselves.

At the same time, I wondered how residents of the lakeside town kept themselves from skipping stones and traipsing along the beaches every chance they had.

Then I realized–even as I unwound and re-discovered the deep places of my children’s hearts shamefully and too-long neglected–much of life becomes an afterthought.

None of us intends for this to happen.

The daily grind whittles us down to flesh and bones moving in reaction to surviving the stressors which weigh upon us.

Like a room greying in evening’s fading light, life loses color and hope and before we know it, we’re stumbling around in the dark. All things bright and beautiful are hidden, swallowed up by darkness.

Until somehow, light shines in and we can see again.

Perspective brings newness.

Afterthoughts become present gifts.

And we realize, even dull flat stones on the Michigan shoreline have a story . . . a tale of beveled edges softened by the tossing tides . . . a story of sand caressing away hard corners . . .a parable of the Master bringing us back to Him.

Oh, praises–none of us are afterthoughts to Jesus Christ.

Praises–we never become too daily or too commonplace for Him.

Praises–He dances along the shores of our sorrow, joy and essence all the days of our lives.

You have searched me, LORD,

and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

you, LORD, know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before,

and you lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

~Psalm 139~

This blog post is part of the One Word at a Time blog carnival on “afterthought.” Visit their site to see more great posts on this topic. 

New column: Reframing life

I acquired a painting recently.

At first, the canvas seemed nothing more than a simple reminder of my grandmother who created it. The plain wood frame, decades old and dust-covered, did nothing to enhance the art or make me want to hang it anywhere prominent.

After wiping the dust away, I removed the brown frame and took the print to a frame shop. I placed a couple different frames around it, but none seemed to do it justice, until I tried a plain black frame.

Suddenly, the creamy lilies popped off the canvas. Deep olives and greens of lily pad leaves flloated on the water, white speckles of painted of sunlight reflecting off their edges. Inky shadows under the water nearly moved with intensity. I felt like I was wading in the sun-dappled creek, the lily stems stroking my bare feet and legs.

In her book One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp relates intense, personal stories of lives lost, the daily physical and financial hardships of keeping a family farm afloat, and the joy and pain of raising six children. Near lost in the intensity and constant swirling stress of her life, Voskamp decides to choose to be thankful in the midst of whatever hardship comes her way, sibling rivalry, threats of foreclosure, even the trauma of losing a child. She dedicated a blog to this practice, which challenged readers to seek out and track gifts, or blessings, they might not notice otherwise in the course of their busy days.

“. . . Every where we look we only see all that isn’t: holes, lack, deficiency . . . I hunger for filling in a world that is starved,” writes Voskamp.

Don’t we all? Especially as winter gray and long struggles toward spring.

In the 1990’s, Oprah made gratefulness a fad, introducing gratefulness journals to the public with the challenge to write down five things you’re grateful for at the end of each day.

There’s even an app for the practice of gratefulness. Called the Gratitude Journal, the i-Phone application provides users with custom fonts, bullets, and image frames, inspirational quotes, photo uploading and other capabilities to inspire and track your gratefulness.

Whatever form or method used, gratefulness has a way of reframing the mundane, even hopelessness, of life.

Gratefulness can be small . . .

. . . like the fact the washing machine worked one more day; your toddler napped for a whole hour; or, you spied the pointed leaf of a crocus pushing up out of your flower bed.

Gratefulness can be big . . .

. . . like when hospital test results come back clear; you reconcile with a rebellious teenager; or, you finally got the job.

Today, I hold my hands up to my face, first finger and thumb in the shape of an “L.”

Life reframed, the white gleam of love reflects off the edges and the sweet smell of blessings rises, fresh and clear, like lily pads floating to the top of a murky pond.

Gratefulness entwines around the prickles on worn and weary hearts, smoothing and pullling us to live fully again.

Reach and remember

Macabre, monstrous beasts, the trees stretched into the azure sky, nature’s choir yearning toward the heavens. I dreamed beneath them, leaned upward with them, careened forward amidst them.

Until I looked down.

And around.

My feet disappeared, blanketed in kisses of pink sorrel, reminding me its not the redwoods that matter so much. It’s not who sees me, but what I see.

What I take time to notice.

Who I remember to be.

Which is nothing more and nothing less than who God made me to be.

Ever reaching heavenward.

Ever remembering it is God whom I follow and not man.

It is the Holy Spirit whisper I crane to hear–not the clash and crash of the manufactured world around me.

Listen.

Do you hear it?

Look at the flowers around your feet.

Lest we forget.

We must remember.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. (Galatians 5:25 MSG)