A Letter to Myself as a Child,

 Dear Me, how difficult it is for me to type the word “Dear” as I write this letter to myself, the child that was me. Just realizing that strikes me with the reality that I do not love myself well.

 I can see you in my mind’s eye, your frightful hair, your ugly dress, your thick glasses, you are barefoot and alone. Oh child you have so much in front of you, and although a lot of it is going to be awful painful, it will all be okay. Your will find what you are seeking.

 I think of you as you prepare for school, the utter dread that resides in the pit of your stomach. How you so fervently wish you could stay home, just stay home forever, and have the only contact with others be the brother you love so much and the father who protects you. He protects you here at home, but when you try to tell him of the horrors of school he instructs you to fight. You really don’t want to fight; you don’t even really want to fit in, even at your young age you seem to know that fitting in with the other kids is impossible for you, you just want to be left alone…..but if you could just stay here, with the books and the animals. You cannot do this child, you must go forth into the world, you must see yourself as God sees you, so beautiful and precious, and you must try with all your might not to hate.

 You are such an animal person; it will probably please you to know that this will remain with you for all of your days. With God’s creatures you are able to be you, to be real. You receive no judgment. Not one creature has ever muttered under its breath “my God, who dresses that child!”, nor has any creature called you “cross-eyed, ugly, frightful or any other of the horrible words you hear each day. With them you find acceptance, and love and laughter. You talk with them always; keep doing that child for not once in your life will an animal let you down.

 With that being said you do have to live in the human world. And all those people who are so mean to you, well child they are broken people, the world is filled with them, and they strike out at you from their own brokenness and shortcomings. If you can see that, and dredge up some pity and some compassion for them, well it just might help you get through the coming years. If you don’t then I can tell you now that you are destined to hate humanity. You will become so hardened, I know it’s hard to believe child but one day you will take a gruesome joy in inflicting pain on somebody. You will become one who does the hurting first, one who does not believe in any gesture of friendship or love as real, only something to grasp for a moment and then to end quickly and brutally before it can be ended on you.

 Oh child, I wish you could know the love of God as you know it now at 56. It would make your path so much more pleasant. You will be pleased to know that the hateful bitter years will not last forever. God will reach down and take that heart of stone away and return to you a heart of flesh. You will love people, you will deeply care for them and you will be an empathic soul who deeply feels the pain of others and wants only to ease it for them. You will also find love child, although you will struggle all your life with sharing your deepest emotions. I am working on that right now and not really gaining much ground. You will also always struggle with self-esteem. Even your 56 year old self feels ugly. As the world defines such things we are pretty ugly child, but God sees the heart and you have a beautiful heart. You have always had a heart for the hurting. Hold on to that, and know that when God looks down on you He sees you as beautiful. That is all that matters in the end. The world’s concept of beauty is deeply flawed. You will discover this as you go to higher grades in school. You will meet the beautiful ones, the ones whose hair is perfect and whom the boys chase after with vigor and delight and you will feel the bitter reality of that flawed beauty as these same girls, deemed perfect and amazing will hurt you deeply. Child you just have to remember that not every beautiful face is like they are. Try not to hate the beautiful ones for there are people out there who are gorgeous on the outside and the inside.

 Above all things child, know that God loves you, He calls you His beloved. He has known and loved you before the foundation of the world and in His eyes you are wonderful. He delights in you. That is all you really need child although sometimes the hurt and the yearning to have that from someone with skin on is going to consume you. Cling to God; know that He is with you always, through the darkest of times when you can see no light. Child I know He was there as I look back upon those years that are in front of you. He is faithful, He is enough. Believe in Him, hand Him your broken heart, hand Him your pain, hand Him all those things that weigh you down so.

God bless you child,

I am so sorry things were so darn tough.

But it’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna be more than okay.

 

With all my love and forgiveness,

Yourself at 56

  I want to tell you a little bit about my recent journey to the hills of eastern Tennessee and also to the hills of western North Carolina where I was born and raised. It is a story of broken made beautiful and a story of God's great grace and how if we are obedient to Him, if we can step out in faith and love like He wants us to, even when we are afraid that our love might be met with something less, He can and does work miracles. I was a bit afraid to go on this trip. I really didn't want the little bit that I had to be lost and a part of me feared that things might not go as I so hoped that they would.

 There will be missing parts to my tale, for to tell it fully would require a book and to tell it partially might lead to misunderstanding some of the characters of my story and perhaps misjudging them. This story isn't about judgment, it is all about grace.

  To begin I must tell a small part of our history, in order for you to perhaps be able to catch a glimpse of the miracles that I so clearly see occurring. I and my brother were raised by our father in the western foothills of North Carolina. Our mother left when I was very small and she married my father's brother. They had a daughter, my half sister.......and my first cousin....(no, that's not banjo's you hear). Needless to say you can probably imagine that the family was a bit torn regarding these things. My brother, my sister and me all paid a price in that tearing even though it was no fault of ours that these things occurred.

  My sister and I have met perhaps three or four times over the course of 50 years, once when we were children and the rest at various funerals. We have probably had no more than a few minutes to talk each time. We have been friends on Facebook for about three years now and have spoken on the phone once or twice. As for my mother, I believe I have seen her four times since she left and only for very short periods.

 I have always had a desire to know my sister, but circumstances and distance have always been an obstacle, along with my own feelings of inadequacy that kept me from stepping out there, lest it not work out and be a disappointment. I had truly believed that this was something I needed to set aside as chances are it just wasn't going to happen in this lifetime.

 My sister's fiftieth birthday was approaching and her family wanted very much to surprise her with something special. As it turns out she is a lot like me so that wasn't an easy thing. She doesn't get much excited about jewelry and clothes and such so they had their task cut out for them. It had came up in conversation how much she would like to have some time to spend with me, her and I had mentioned on our Facebook how we would love to be able to sit on the porch and chat someday. So they decided to purchase tickets and present her with me as her fiftieth birthday present. It was a new experience for me. I had never been someone's birthday present before!

  I was both excited and apprehensive about the trip. The excitement won out, for as I said earlier I had always wished for more time with my sister, time to sit and talk, time to get to know each other. Finally the day arrived and I boarded the plane to begin my journey. I won't bore you with the details of that journey from New Mexico to that beautiful Tennessee valley surrounded by rolling hills, needless to say I arrived safely.

 Her daughter surprised her by having her read a birthday card aloud while she faced the wall, I slipped in during the middle of this and stood waiting for her to turn around. She was surprised. Totally surprised. We both cried.

 And thus began a whirlwind of four days of hysterical laughter, some beautiful tears, many long talks, a lot of cigar smoking (probably too much cigar smoking) and a couple of fake tattoos (which in retrospect were probably a mistake on both our parts). We walked all over the North Carolina and Tennessee mountains and all over the city of Gatlinburg. I was able to spend time with her beautiful family and get to know them. We spent an entire day with my brother and we visited with his family, and I had the second hottest Prawns Diablo in my life, believe it or not they were served in a Mexican restaurant in North Carolina. Who would have thought!

  And of course nothing is ever complete in my life without some animals in it, so here's to Scooter, Trixie, Socks and Bullseye who all shared their canine kindness with me, and here's to Bessie 1-47, the kindly cows who tolerated my early morning conversations in the fields near my sister's home.

  But the real beauty of the entire trip was getting to know my sister, to find that she was very much like me, almost eerily so seeing how she was raised by our mother and I was not. During this four day period, God took all the brokenness between us, brokenness that was not of our doing and he forged a relationship. It is like I have known her always, and although I already loved her, she has now become quite precious to me. It was amazing how well everything went, how it was as if we had always known each other, and we marveled at how much alike we were. It was a bit like finding out you have a twin. I will forever treasure this time we had together. It was dear to me and in truth there simply are not the words to adequately capture what those four days meant to me.

  And I experienced another miracle of  broken made beautiful when I met and spent some time with my mother. I really did not want to, to be honest, it was just so much easier to keep these things at a distance less one be disappointed. I harbored no ill will towards her but I was accustomed to not having her in my life and content to continue it that way. But God kept pressing me that I needed to see her. In obedience to Him I did so, and I was greatly surprised when my eyes beheld this beautiful lady, with white hair, and her blouse all a sparkle, and I loved her. All that had transpired in the past was finished and my heart was filled with love for this woman who had given birth to me. We were able to talk and laugh and I greatly enjoyed the short time we spent together.

 The trip was amazing, it was renewing, it was beautiful in so many ways, a lot of it cannot be explained here in a blog post, as it's deeply personal to the parties involved, but suffice to say that it was a miraculous gift from a gracious God and I am in awe of all that He accomplished in my life and the lives of others during this short trip back home.

I have a sister......I have always had her, but now I know her and we have a relationship and she is beautiful, and wonderful and I love her to death. She now knows that she has a sister and a brother and hopefully she knows that she is as much a part of us as if she had come up along side us in all the hard times we endured growing up. She is family. The only regrets, the only sorrow that I have from this trip is that we all waited so darn long to get together, yet even in this I believe God orchestrated it all and His timing is perfect.

 

  Here are just a few of my photos from my trip that capture some of the physical beauty of all the places we went. From the view from my sister's front porch, to the North Carolina mountains I saw the majesty of God's creation, but the most beautiful thing will ever be the wonderful mosaic that God created from our brokenness. He does indeed make the broken beautiful.

    Have you ever stood in awe of something? Ever had those moments where your heart is struck with wonder and joy and for the briefest of moments you feel as if you are about to finally grasp some great and profound truth only to have it fade to the edges of your mind, where you have to struggle and wrestle to bring it forth long enough to really ponder what it even was?

    Moments when you stand by a beautiful mountain lake, listening to the wind through the trees and gazing in awe at the beauty of it all and for a second, you have a feeling, that you cannot quite put words to, it is both perfect, and peace all wrapped up in joy, and in an instant the fullness of it has passed.

   Or perhaps you are gathered about the table, with the ones you love most, and you look upon their faces as they talk and laugh and for a second that feeling rushes in, of a perfect love, and a peace you cannot describe and a sense of rightness, of knowing that this, this right here, this fleeting second is how's it's all supposed to be. And as fast as you grasped hold it is gone again, leaving you with such a longing that it near takes your breath away.

  I call those moments glimpses of heaven, and the aftermath of them is longing for home.. Those moments when through the dark mirror of sin and  brokenness we for a second glimpse so briefly and so imperfectly the real beauty, the real love and peace and perfection that God intended for mankind, before we turned it all into one big hot mess.

 We all have memories of home, memories of the place where we perhaps felt most safe and at peace, memories of childhood where we ran through grassy meadows and we laughed and we had not a care in the world. They differ with everyone. The nostalgic longing for home may be for a place, it may or may not be the place of your childhood, it may be a person or a time, but we all long for it. We all want to go home. The trouble is the feelings are hard to put words to, and the place, that home we are searching for is often not even understood fully by us, even though we are the ones longing for it. And when we try and go back to that physical place, or that time where we believe home was at we find something missing.

 "......it is when he comes home that he recognizes most poignantly that he is, at a deep level of his being, homeless, and whatever it is that is missing, he will spend the rest of his days longing for it and seeking to find it."Frederick Buechner

  For me, those perfect moments, or perfect seconds, because often they do not last very long, are moments where I see a tiny sample, an imperfect sample, like a child's drawing of Disney World would not come close to equaling the reality of Disney World, of the wonder that God has in store for those who believe. For a brief second I catch a glimpse of home, my true home. Those glimpses make me yearn, with a deep and even painful yearning for the reality of that place, for the eternity of that place.

  Just as the moments of wonder and awe, the moments of love and peace create in me a yearning for home, so do the moments of despair. In the dark times the mirror is black, and I see no reflection of home, no sign of how things were meant to be, I see only how they are. I see the brokenness, the grief and despair, the death and destruction and bitter disappointment. When earthly hope is crushed it leaves only that yearning, a desperate yearning for home. This yearning, the one that comes in the dark times is a heavier yearning. A pressed down feeling, where you can only raise your eyes to the heavens and whisper "come Lord Jesus", where your eyes, for the moment lose the ability to see any beauty in the ugliness around you, you see instead only the brokenness of it all and in that desperate brokenness you just long so heavily for home.

 The older I get the more I yearn for home, and the more I fully understand that home is where Jesus is. The glimpses of light and grace I see in the earthly home I now live in, and in the faces of the ones I love on those brief moments when all is well, and in the beauty of the flowers, the mountains and the bright blue sky are only poor reflections of what He intended when he spoke it all into being and are only poor and dim glimpses of what He has in store for me on that day when I at last get to go home. 

  Frederick Buechner describes a moment when he and his family were at SeaWorld and where they experience one of those moments, one of those glimpses of heaven that brought tears to his eyes, and to the eyes of his family who were with him. He writes:

 "We shed tears because we had caught a glimpse of the Peaceable Kingdom and it had almost broken our hearts. For a few moments we had seen Eden and been part of the great dance that goes on at the heart of creation. We shed tears because we were given a glimpse of the way life was created to be and is not. We had seen why it was the "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy" when the world was first made, as the book of Job describes it and of what it was that made Paul write, even when he was in prison and on his way to execution, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice." We had had a glimpse of part at least of what Jesus meant when He said "Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh".

 The world is full of darkness, but what I think we caught sight of .............was that at the heart of darkness-----whoever would have believed it?---there is a joy unimaginable. The world does bad things to us all, and we do bad things to the world and to each other and maybe most of all to ourselves, but in that dazzle of bright water as the glittering whales hurled themselves into the sun, I believe what we saw was that joy is what we belong to Joy is home, and I believe the tears that came to our eyes were more than anything else homesick tears. God created us in joy and created us for joy, and in the long run not all the darkness there is in the world or in ourselves can separate us finally from that joy, because whatever else it means to say that God created us in His image, I think it means that even when we cannot believe in Him, even when we feel most spiritually bankrupt and deserted by Him, His mark is deep within us. We have God's joy in our blood" Frederick Buechner's  Secrets in the Dark “The Great Dance,”

 

 This morning as I write these words my heart longs for home. Home is where Jesus is, and were I only able to sit on the outskirts of heaven and view Him from a distance, were that all that was promised and no more could be hoped for, that would be enough and I would be content. I want to see Him, I want to fellowship with Him, I want to depend entirely and completely on Him, I want to run my race well for Him, I want to trust Him more fully, love Him more truly and place all my hope and expectations upon Him and Him alone. Home is where Jesus is. I try, sometimes with desperation, to create that home here on earth, or at least a child's drawing of it. I fail constantly in that attempt and I am so very often broken and discouraged when it all goes wrong.

  Jesus is "my hope and stay" and everything else I hope in, everything else that my expectations are placed upon, falls short, disappoints and ultimately leaves me empty and yearning for that which I cannot quite put words to......longing for home.....glimpses of heaven.

Lord, I come, I confess
Bowing here I find my rest
Without You I fall apart
You're the One that guides my heart

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

Where sin runs deep Your grace is more
Where grace is found is where You are
And where You are, Lord, I am free
Holiness is Christ in me

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

Teach my song to rise to You
When temptation comes my way
And when I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus, You're my hope and stay

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

You're my one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

  Someone that I love once told me of a near death experience, of a moment when he thought for certain he was going to die. He said the sky never looked so vivid blue, and the air in his lungs felt so fresh and wonderful. In a matter of moments many memories went through his head as he recalled his family and how much he loved them. It is amazing how vivid the everyday normal things around him were, and how beautiful, even in that dark place where he was at. All brought to vivid display and all written forever into his memory because death was at the door. 

 Why is it that the bad things always get stuck in our heads. We remember things that frighten us, things that break our hearts, and these memories often lead us to fear for we are terrified of reliving them.

 What if we made an effort to hold onto the mundane moments, to savor the everyday normal that we so often take for granted? Personally I believe this is perhaps a very important thing that we so seldom do.

 A few nights ago I sat on our back porch as a storm blew through. The wind was whipping through my hair, the mist from the falling rain was hitting my skin and the smell of the cold rain hitting the scorched hot earth was intoxicating. I had seen many a thunderstorm in my 56 years but for some reason this one was memorable. It was memorable because I savored it. I consciously took in the feeling of the wind, the feeling of the rain, the scent in the air, how the clouds roiled in the sky and the thunder shook the heavens. I reveled in it, and in reveling in it I was transported from a mundane ordinary moment to something beautiful.

 When my oldest son first deployed to war and we took him to the airport to say goodbye, I can still remember the scent of him, the feel of him as I hugged him tight. I can vividly recall these things. I had hugged him thousands of times over the years, I had enjoyed those hugs, I took delight in those hugs, but on this occasion I savored it. I took it in for there was a part of me so afraid that I might never again be given the privilege of holding him close. Hugging a loved one is a mundane normal everyday moment. But what if we took it to the level of savoring every hug, as if it were the very last one, what if we did that every day?

 There is a beautiful butterfly bush in my back yard, it is a favorite of mine and I have looked at it's blooms many times, rejoiced in it's beauty many times but recently I examined it carefully. I examined the large blooms that are made up of hundreds of tiny perfect purple flowers all molded into the large purple blooms that I can see from my back porch. I breathed it in, and for the first time noticed that my beautiful butterfly bush has a scent to it's blooms. It left me in awe of the wonderful detail that goes into that ordinary bush, a bush that sits in thousands of yards, a bush I have beheld for many summers, even rejoiced in many summers, and yet a bush that I had failed to completely take in.

 As Ann Voskamp once said, "we only have this one moment", this moment right now that we are living and breathing in. The next breath is not promised, the next sunrise is not promised, the next hug is not promised.....nothing is certain except this one moment right now. So breathe it in, breathe it in deep. Savor it. Whether it's a thunderstorm, a hug from a loved one, or a flower, or perhaps it is just you in the kitchen cooking dinner and feeling a bit frazzled....whatever it is, slow down, consider for a moment. What if this is the last sunrise, the last hug, the last time you ever have to cook dinner for them?

 There is so much beauty in the everyday mundane, so much holiness in the daily ordinary things. We need to seek it, look for it, live with eyes wide open to it....else we miss it entirely and in missing it we miss the wonder of it all.

 Take it all in, speak out in gratitude for all that you see, all that you sense and smell and taste that is good.

 In thinking of these things I pause and give thanks for the mundane moments of my own life:

For the old dog laying quietly at my feet, who lives and breathes to please me........

For the husband who left this morning to do work on one of our vehicles, how I often take him for granted, how lost I would be without him.......

For the younger son and his smiling face as he stands next to his beautiful girl friend, and for the fun he is having on his first excursion half way across the country...........

For the older son relaxing today in his home, for his life and the fact that he is with us, that he did not die...........

For the window that I am gazing out of now, as I write these words, for those beautiful mountains that take my breath away near every day, for the plants and flowers and their beauty........

And for so very much more.............I am grateful.......I breath it all in........and savor it........Lord help us to be people who breath it all in, who savor the moments, who see the beauty.

  " The lover’s smile in the morning, the child’s laughter down the slide, the elder’s eyes at eventide: this is for you. And the earth under your feet, the rain over your face upturned, the stars spinning all round you in the brazen glory: this is for you, you, you. These are for you—gifts—these are for you—grace—these are for you—God, so count the ways He loves, a thousand, more, never stop, that when you wake in the morning you can’t help turn humbly to the east, unfold your hand to the heavens, and though you tremble and though you wonder, though the world is ugly, it is beautiful, and you can slow and you can trust and you can receive each moment as grace. Eucharisteo. " Ann Voskamp

Pastor Adam has been preaching through the book of Daniel and last Sunday he touched on the last few chapters of that book. I've been pondering upon those last few chapters as there were many things that leapt out at me during the pastor's sermon. You see, I am a worrier, a caregiver. If someone I care about is off kilter in life, if they are sad, or in trouble, or sick or in danger, well everything in my life becomes off kilter and I fret. Some of this is good, it drives me to pray, and it is always good to pray, but some of it is not so good. Jesus was very clear in His teaching about being afraid and about worry. He plainly instructed me not to worry, and told me straight not to be afraid.

  As I was listening to the message a passage in Chapter 10 leapt out. Where the angel is addressing Daniel and says "O Daniel, man greatly loved" Daniel 10:11 and then a bit later he says "Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. "Daniel 10:12

 O man greatly loved! What a beautiful statement! Daniel, living in exile, one mere man amongst many and yet he is GREATLY loved by God! And then it hits me, I too am greatly loved by God! Our good God loves all His children! Isn't that an amazing and awesome thing! And then those powerful words......from the moment you set your heart to understand.........your words have been heard! What glorious wonder that the God who spoke all things into being, the God who holds all things together, HEARS our words!

 No wonder we are told to FEAR NOT! No wonder we are told NOT TO WORRY!

  And then a little later the angel says "O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage." Daniel 10:19

   I like how the Message translation renders Daniel 10:19......"Don't be afraid, friend. Peace. Everything is going to be all right. Take courage. Be strong.'

 Everything is going to be all right.......as someone I love who has since gone on to be with Jesus once said to me in a dream......."don't worry Ma, everything's gonna be alright, in fact it's gonna be more than alright."

    I imagine it is always going to be hard to watch people suffer, especially the ones I know and love. That isn't going to change, I don't think I would want it to, but when they are hurting my job is to pray, to love, to comfort, to speak words of truth, to come alongside, to help carry the load.....but it isn't my job to worry and fret. I need to trust God. You do too. He is trustworthy. There is nothing too big for Him to handle.

 He is the God who shuts the mouths of hungry lions.

 He is the God who steps into the burning furnace with us.

 He is the God who brings about exactly what He intends to bring about.

 He is good.

 He is trustworthy.

 Don't be afraid.