the finger of God
I see God’s creative finger in all seasons. But never more, I think, than in the spring when life unfurls. These are the days when all that glitters is green. Yet life is sometimes blood-tinged like the color of death in this new leaf. That also carries the color of hope. Because life is in the blood, and as long as there’s life, there’s hope. I’ve been thinking a lot about the “finger of God.” I’m sharing over at BibleDude today. It’s a little disjointed. But then so is life sometimes. I’d be honored if you’d join me there. Still...
five minute friday: shattered
She threw the plate down on the carpet. Or maybe she dropped it. Either way, it shattered everywhere, even into the next two rooms. We stood in a sea of shards. With bare feet. She tried to run away, but I scooped her up in my arms. And then I woke up. This is Good Friday. And I’m thinking how God stripped Himself bare and threw Himself down into the midst of our brokenness. Because He longed to gather this fractured world to His breast. And He wept for the love of it. For the love of us. But we shattered Him. Stabbed His head with thorns. Shred his flesh with shards. He stumbled under the weight of the cross, body broken into bread without a bone broken, blood letting life. He hangs under our debt, scoops up all our pieces, stretches out to pull us...
in which cancer brings clarity #PrayForDavid
Last Thursday I wrote about crushing and brokenness and how it’s the crushed who seep the sweetest fragrance and how the broken and the bent bend the brightest light. I wrote about hope in the face of disappointment and life-shattering circumstances. The next day, I learned that David Landrith, pastor of Long Hollow Baptist Church out of Hendersonville, Tennessee, has been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer–colorectal melanoma. (I traveled to Haiti in December with a team from this church.) One minute he and his wife were gathering fresh feathers to fluff their soon-to-be-empty nest, and the next being told that their future would look far different from what they dreamed. The diagnosis carries a very grim prognosis. A crushing...
when you’re crushed and broken
It’s just the two of us for dinner. I scrounge up some chicken, left over from the chicken-with-cherry-sauce recipe from A Taste of Laity Lodge. Only for her, I serve it plain with bottled Hawaiian sauce and no cherries and a broken breadstick with pizza sauce. She skips the asparagus. Then she trades the chicken for leftover spaghetti. Grace stands at the counter to watch Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure on the postage-size TV while she eats. “Do you want me to shut it off?” she asks when she’s done. “Yes. No.” I’d planned to listen to Job on my Bible CD while I cleaned up the kitchen, but I’m sucked in. Tinkerbell is chosen to create a unique scepter to raise up a rare magical stone. When the light of the blue...
her father’s joy
“You’re just waiting to get pregnant,” my doctor assured me. But days of thermometers and planned lovemaking and monthly disappointment tore at thinned emotions, feelings also frayed from too much doing, too much identity seeking in serving. Adoption doors hid behind lines that flowed into forever. “The company wants us to move,” my husband told me. “It’s just for 12-18 months. They want us to lease this house, rent in Tampa.” It was too much. I snapped. “You go right ahead. I’m not going.” But God was gutting me of myself. Preparing me for sacrifice. Preparing me for selflessness. Teaching me joy in all things. “You’re going to come back with a baby,” said Judy. But I was losing...
for when you’re hungry
continued from yesterday Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Spring. Bread again in the House of Bread. Naomi had experienced winter in her heart and soul. Little did she know that spring would soon break into her brokenness. Little did she know what God was orchestrating for her and her Gentile daughter-in-law, and for us. Little did she know that beauty would blossom from her ashes. That gladness would displace her mourning and a spirit of praise would triumph over her despair. A new story in the works. Ruth “just happened” to glean in the field of a man named Boaz, who “just happened” to be from Elimelech’s family–a close kinsman, one who could redeem Elimelech’s land and carry...
Scripture Sunday: Salvation Right on Time
Pay attention, my people. Listen to me, nations. Revelation flows from me. My decisions light up the world. My deliverance arrives on the run, my salvation right on time. I’ll bring justice to the peoples. Even faraway islands will look to me and take hope in my saving power. Look up at the skies, ponder the earth under your feet. The skies will fade out like smoke, the earth will wear out like work pants, and the people will die off like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my setting-things-right will never be obsolete. Isaiah 51:4-6...
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