Fly

 

 

My eyes gaze upward as the birds soar, dip, and wing their way through the cloud thick sky.   Oh, to be so free!  To experience and taste the wind in varying degrees.  To increase the velocity in which it rushes past you with just a flap of the wing or alteration of tail.  What a thrilling sensation. As my eyes follow the ascension and undulation winging across before me, my thoughts turn to a repetitive childhood dream.

It always started out exhilarating….

I could fly! 

I would spread my arms, run to work up some speed, then launch into the gorgeous atmosphere.  I would swoop and glide, gracefully traveling over the beautiful landscape underneath me.  The wind would lift my hair back and up away from my face.  Here there was peace. Here away from solid ground it was amazing, freeing, spectacularly celestial.  However, inevitably, in an instant all would change, my altitude increasing to such great proportions that the landscape blurred into indefinite shapes.  Panic would seize me and flying was no longer an option.  My rapid descent to the earth striking fear into every inch of my mind, body and soul.

Now, many years later, ironically God is calling me to fly. 

The time for being grounded is over.  He is calling me forward, asking me to pick up speed, to meet Him on a whole new spiritual level.  There is a deepness, an intimacy He wants me to know.  It’s exhilarating and frightening.  Because if I run and jump off this cliff will I really be able to fly?

The thing about flying and birds is that they don’t take on unnecessary baggage.

They are streamlined. Every bone hollow and lightweight.  Every feather perfectly placed for intricate flight.  They don’t carry anything they aren’t designed to.

I tend to be the opposite.  I carry fear, frustration, control, hurt… they’ve been my companions for so long that I’ve become used to them in varying degrees.  But, now that Jesus has called me to fly He has begun to prepare me for flight.  He’s stripping me bare of all that would keep me grounded.  What a process, this flight training on ground level.  These months of preparation have been difficult, eye opening, and even painful as Jesus shows me what must go.  It’s a trimming and a pruning, an altering and refining.

Because if I’m going to fly with Jesus I can’t be afraid.  His heights are way higher than what this simple mind is used to.  I can’t go up there with the mind set of fear.  I can’t start flying and then scream in fear if it seems that I am plummeting to the earth at break neck speeds.  If I’m going to fly then I need to trust.

If I do loose altitude and all seems lost.   If I fall from the sky like a burned out meteor, then I better have the trust of God instilled in me. I have to know deep within my heart that He isn’t going to let me crash and burn.  No ,my God, He’s my Savior and I better know deep within my heart that He’s going to save me from being smashed to smithereens upon unforgiving rocks.

As C.S. Lewis put it, it’s time to go “farther up and farther in”.  It’s time to rise above normalcy.

It’s time to  FLY, FLY, FLY!

Deep breath in….

I’m ready to soar!

How Do You Dance?

 

 

 

How do you dance when the beat changes?

How do you dance when you the music stops?

How do you dance when all eyes are turned upon you?

Do you stop or do you leap?  Do you walk away defeated or do you sing as you twirl- 

Making your own music and dancing your praise.

 

 

You know that you have been called to dance; to be over the top called apart from the others sitting in the pews around you.  No longer is it okay to sit there unchanged.  No longer is it acceptable to not be outrageously vocal about who Jesus is for you.

The choice lies before you. Sit down, be quiet, keep the peace, keep the steady.

Or live out the fire that your Savior has put inside you.

You can sit on your hands or raise them high.

You can succumb to glazed eyes and numb mind or throw caution to the wind.

You can slip into heart hibernation…

 

 

Or you can DANCE.

The choice is yours.

Do you want to dance? 

Do you want the world to see you twirling, leaping, and praising your Jesus?  Then DANCE!

Do you want to live out the bold faith of the New Testament?  Then display the fire of the Holy Spirit that is within you.

Do you want to further the Kingdom?  Then SING!

 

 

 

Grab your skirt, send up a shout of praise, and twirl!

Leap and tell the world of a Savior who loves beyond measure!

You can’t go back.

There’s no sitting.

This is no quiet demonstration.

This is God.  His Spirit pouring into you. Urging you to crazy love.

SO DANCE!

Awakening

 

 

 

 

My eyes are being opened, my heart filled.  The empty and scared places healed.  There’s an awakening taking place.

My God is not the impersonal God I believed Him to be for so long. He is the lover of my soul.  Lover? Really.

Not long ago I would have thought that terminology to be sacrilegious. I would have cringed and thought that calling God your lover was over the top!  My mind was stuck in places of religious terminology, that God never intended to to be.  I was stuck in my thinking, equating lover with sexuality. 

God is my lover. He loves me. He loves me. HE LOVES ME!

Nothing I can say or do will ever change that.  He calls me beautiful, holy, and blameless.  On the days when I turn from Him, He still loves me. When I blatantly choose to sin, He still loves me.  When I feel like I’m coming undone, He wraps His arms around me and holds me close.

He is my lover!

He is awakening me to see who He truly is.  He is showing me His love, His power, His grace, His mercy, His majesty. 

And I am in AWE!

Thirteen how can you possibly have landed upon my Caleb?

 

Caleb, the days of before are sadly a blur for me. There are memories here and there, but so much this momma’s heart wishes her mind could remember. Although much is lost in the past and days have flown by which I foolishly thought were nondescript, I do know this one thing…. I love you with all my heart. And I am blessed to be your mom!  You bring such joy into our home and I am so thankful for you each and every day.

Thirteen!

You are starting your journey to manhood. How exciting!  And I am so thankful that the Lord has chosen me to walk beside you on this journey.  And what a journey it is going to be, because we know that God has chosen you! 

You are his beloved child and He is calling to you, “Come this way, Caleb,  My son whom I love completely.  Look to me.  It is time to run!  Before you may have felt weighed down, not able to run, but I’m telling you that you can.  I have placed within you My compassion, My passion, My Holy Spirit, and My desire for my people.  So run, Caleb.  Run to Me, so that you may in return shower My glory over everyone you come in contact with. You are going to shine with my Presence and people everywhere will know that you love Me, your God.”

Caleb, I am so thankful to be your momma!  You melt my heart with your compassion and gentleness.  You make me laugh uncontrollably with your funny sense of humor.  And every time you smile I want to tell you to never quit smiling because your dimples light up the world!  This year I am looking forward to seeing you grow not only physically and mentally, but most importantly spiritually.  It’s a journey we are on together.  Keeping our eyes and hearts on God and our hands in His as He leads us into deeper understanding of who He is is.  You are a world changer, my beautiful son.  God is using you and asking you to speak out for Him.  GO FOR IT!  Shout His praises every where you go.  Bring His comfort every place you step.  Glorify Him with every word.  Pour out His love upon everyone you meet, because you are His hands and feet.

I love you with all my heart and can’t wait to see what God has for us this year!  I know it is going to be good!

Because I Need to Savor These Moments….

 

Over the past year life has taken some turns and my opportunity to write has diminished.  I still write. Actually I write continually, but it never seems to leave my head these days.  As I look back over my youth, I can see that I have always been a writer. My mind is always working up sentences, paragraphs, themes.

I’ve taken to jotting down bits here and there in my notebooks.

It’s how I started in the beginning of my blogging days. It’s where I have returned.

Back to the beauty of pen flowing across the paper, but even those entries are fewer than I wish.

You see God has opened new areas of ministry to me and they are increasing.  He is calling me out into deep waters, into a relationship with Him that for most makes no sense.  But, is there anything about God and His great plan of salvation that makes good, common, down to earth sense? Yeah. I don’t think so.  That’s why He is God! His wisdom is not of this natural world.  His plans are not what we would ever dream up.  He is beyond what our minds could ever think or imagine.

As I step into this calling of ministry to women and teens, I find there is less time for my thoughts to land upon the page.

And then there’s the photography.  This fall has been full.  A Good full.  The beauty God is placing before me is astounding.  His people, His creation…. it’s breath taking and I have had the privilege of capturing it lately.

It leaves little time for crafting my words. But, with the camera it is capturing moments and life in a full, vivid color.  Helping me to savor these gifts and blessings.

Because this little girl, she’s a gift.  And a half hour at dusk playing in the leaves is a moment I do not want to forget.

Words turned to prints.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

A Picture Compilation…

Like sunlight burning at midnight

Making my life so

Beautiful, beautiful

Mercy reaching to save me

All that I need

You are so

Beautiful, beautiful ~Francesca Battistelli

 

 

Photos speak a thousand words and capture memories of the heart.  Summer is gone and my words have been few, but my camera and I have been busy capturing the intense beauty all around me.  

Spilling Forth His Glory

 

There’s so much, so, so, much.

What words should I even start with.  How do I organize into coherent thoughts all that I have experienced?

When God calls you out to follow Him and He asks you to toss all logic and religious caution to the wind, how do you capture that in words?

Over eight months ago God showed me a picture of myself.  It was just a quick snapshot, like one of my own photos except I was the subject.  I was standing in the middle of a grassy field, up on a small knoll that over looked billowing fields and a woods that stretched out as far as my eye could see.  The grasses and prairie flowers were bending in undulating waves all around me.  I had a basket full of grain on my hip.  I had taken a handful and tossed it into the air.  The wind which I was facing lifted my hair up and away from my face.  Chaff floated up and around me carried away by the steady flow that blew past me.  The grain dropped free and clear, unhindered by the chaff, ready for use.

 

 

At that time I only had a miniscule thought of what God was calling me to, but as the months advanced and the chaff became so thick that it almost took my breath away,  I began to see that God had showed me in advance what He was going to lead me through.

It has been a journey.  A journey of heart ache.  A journey of questions.  A journey of renewal.  A journey of new Life.  Above all it has been a journey of seeking God above all else. 

As I think again on the vision God gave me of myself in that field.  My face was never down looking at where my feet were or focusing on my hands reaching for the grain.  My chin was up.  My eyes were lifted to the heavens, seeking my Father, who desires an intimate relationship with me.

As I lift my eyes to seek God’s face I am learning first hand of His intense and all consuming love.  I am getting more and more glimpses of His majesty, His compassion, His power, His glory, His beauty.  He is teaching me to separate the unneeded, the unnecessary, the cumbersome, the hindrances from my every day.  In place of the chaff He is filling me with His Holy Spirit, full to overflowing, so that every part of me, every single pore is spilling forth His reflection.

It’s a process, this becoming more like Christ.  At times it is so hard, hard enough to bring the tears and the almost giving up,  but on the other side there is such joy.  I am learning this joy, hungering for more and more of this God-given gift. 

 

 

Through it all I just want to REFLECT Him, so that I carry Him into every situation.  Into every place I step may His LIGHT shine chasing away all darkness and confusion.

Jesus in me and nothing else!

Herbs In my Garden

 

 

 

This is what I see outside my bedroom window when I get up in the morning.  When I pull back the curtains, I’m greeted with this glorious site.  And though you can’t see it just a few few beyond the creamy hollyhocks is my herb garden.  I’ve been busy cultivating and altering my main flower bed to incorporate a small herbal/kitchen garden.  I have been working on it for several years.  I still do not have it the way I want it, but that’s what a I love.  A challenge is right up my alley!

 

I have a bunch of dill that reseeds itself every year.  So much so, that I thin out a bunch of it every year.  I dry some of it, use some of it in salads, and some my kids just eat straight out of the garden as I’m thinning.

 

 

This winter when I was looking through my seed catalogues I came across this beautiful pole bean.  I have never grown pole beans, but I knew this would be a great addition to my kitchen garden.  Once I got started I even purchased filet beans to climb up my corn in my main garden.  There’s just something fun about trying something new each year.  It’s a game, an adventure, a joy to watch something new growing and then what a pleasure to get to eat it, too!

 

 

I also planted borage and chamomile in my herb garden this year.  The borage is good for improving the growth of the plants around it, so of course I plopped it in several different place in among my herbs.  Plus, it has beautiful, blue, star shaped flowers. The chamomile I am growing so that I can harvest the flowers for tea and tincture.

 

 

I have been busy studying up on natural remedies lately.  Joel experienced a job change several months ago and that has spurred me on to find alternative means of keeping my family healthy.  I was surprised to find that several of the plants that are widely used I have growing all around me. 

One of them is yarrow.  I have yarrow in my flower gardens and it grows wild in my dad’s fields that surround my house.  A walk back the field, a week ago, brought me to one of my favorite spots.  A small grassy field with a broken down barbed wire fence and an old apple tree.  It sits behind what used to be my grandma’s house.  To my complete joy it was full of yarrow.  I clipped to my hearts content and I now have a pint jar full of dried leaves and blooms.

 

 

I’ve also been collecting red clover.  About every other day I clip the abundant blooms.  At first I was harvesting from a small patch on the edge of our yard, but when I was black raspberry picking last week along the fence row, I saw patches and patches of it.  I have hit a boon!  I have a quart and a half dried already and I am continuing on.  I have found that a tea made from them blooms if alleviating my youngest sons allergies.  He was having to take allergy medication daily, but now he drinks a chamomile/red clover tea and is getting relief.  I’m thanking our wonderful Creator for giving us plants right out my front door that improve our health!

 

With all that I have been reading on natural remedies, I figured I needed a good place to keep all the information and knowledge.  I began pinning them to pinterest, but there have been too many times when our internet has gone out.  I wanted something right at my fingertips that didn’t require technology.  So, I am in the process of making an herbal.  An herbal is a “book”, or 3-ring binder in my case, that holds canning and freezing recipes, herbal remedies, natural cleaning tips, herb profiles, gardening information, and any other tip or information about the home that you find handy.

 

 

 

It’s been a busy, but very productive summer so far.  My garden is beginning to produce more and more.  The peas, lettuce and kale are almost done, but the beans, peppers, and cucumbers and starting to pick up.  I’m looking forward to filling up my shelves and freezer!