a journey to now

I am singing, singing to the color of green!

After five weeks of excessive high temperatures and drought, each morning this week began with a gentle rain, giving life to the dead brown carpet under foot.  But this new color emerged in the coming of storms.

I was moaning this fact last week as I was driving with lightning, wind and thunder all around, planning an escape route from the hail! I cried, “We need rain, but do we have to have the storm?”

Surely there can be rain without a storm, but with the atmospheric conditions as they were, there was no other way.

Now there is flooding in our area.

Why can’t it be normal? What is normal anyway?  I live in a different kind of sameness than my friend Camille in Washington state.  For her, normal is rain most every day. She loves it when there is sunshine for a few days, and that is different for her. While in Denmark we were more accustomed to rainy cool days than bright sunshine.

In a matter of days, we  have gone from brown dead earth to vivid green and  a promise of flooding.

I am wondering if this is not how life is. Life seems to always be somewhere in the extreme.

Just when I think life is “normal”, there comes the storm–a pain, a sorrow, a tear, a broken relationship. Then comes healing, joy, laughter and reconciliation–

Always–moving from abnormal through the storm–to normal–for a moment.

I am discovering I must have the storm to focus, to prepare, to seek shelter, to watch–

These days of  continuous rain remind me that I need the slow, gentle soakings of His presence that come from sitting at His feet–an oasis in the sameness or the different. Most often, they come after a storm.

“Almighty God, Lord of the storm and of the calm, of day and night, of life and death; grant to me so to have my heart stayed upon your faithfulness, your unchangingness and love, that whatsoever betides me, I  may look upon you with untroubled eye.”  George Dawson in Little Book of Prayers

I awoke in the middle of the night and wrote–

Life is to be lived in honoring God-loving and serving Him.  This happens by honoring others–loving and serving them.

And it begins at home—just that simple.

For years I have wrestled with the knowing and the discovery  of “what I am to be when I grow up”. I must have thought this process of being somebody or something was complicated or that it had to be quite the spectacular . . .

But now at 66, I realize just how simple it has always been. The being is in the everyday; the ‘be’ is in the becoming. I have worked so agonizingly to find the “perfect plan and place”–you know, just for me—  that I have failed to rest in the journey of today.

“The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord endures forever–do not abandon the works of your hands.” Psalm 138:8

I sensed expectancy as I was oiling a bagel. Something or Someone was near me–a presence. I rested in the thought that, indeed, life–real joy-filled life is living with this wonder of a new morning. An invitation was being given me to enter into His presence . . .

Years ago I had taped this quote on my desk–“old age begins the moment one quits expecting something wonderful around the next corner. For some, this happens very early; for others, it never happens.”

Very few, if any of us, live a life full of grand, glad moments. We need to practice expecting and seeing what the French call le petit bonheur-the little happiness. We can do this by accepting  every day with its “little happiness”  as an unrepeatable miracle.

The ground here in Tennessee begs for rain. There is no promise of soon coming showers for the brittle parched grass. But, oh, the cool breezes of this morning presented me with le petit bonheur!  I relished the moment of quiet happiness as I watched the bright colors of finches and cardinals at the feeders.  ‘This  is the day the Lord has made . . .” Psalm 118: 24

I will cherish each minute.

A surreal sense of peace-a soft cocoon security fills me this morning. It welcomed me as I went into the kitchen, ablaze with early morning’s first glow.

Contentment for the moment–ah, this is how one lives.

I breathed deeply into the day’s beginning and smiled–laughed even. The simple joys-the important necessities–are so real. Why should I focus on anything less?

I can see, I can hear, I can feel–the beauty and activity of a morning primed to worship the Creator, and I join the silent deafening force.

Life is now!

(Surely I have been here before, but for the past two years I had ceased living in the present.  After  fully living and loving internationals in a ministry in Europe for 10 years, it has been difficult to return and live the moments–maybe I am home?)