Savoring Sunday

Pancakes with maple syrup. Strong hot coffee. A crackling fire sans smoke or ash (love love love our direct vent gas fireplace). A book so beautifully written that I back up and re read and savor words and phrases. I'm privileged to be a recipient of a pre-release copy of Bo Stern's new book "Ruthless" and I'm doing a quick first read through this week. I'm reading chunks out loud to my husband (who is trying to focus on an important RFP)...he's adding to my Sunday joy by reading aloud a news article about the baseball playoffs as some sort of retaliation.

Here's the thing, I'm so grateful to Bo for digging in and studying GOD and then leading us into a deeper understanding of God's character, which I firmly believe is bedrock for a sustainable faith. The book is super readable ...even for poor old eyes squinting at a PDF on Kindle. I really can't contain my enthusiasm and I want you to pre order this book right now. It's on Nav Press and Christianbook.com and if you are a Prime member you can skip the shipping costs on Amazon.  This may well be the best $10 you could spend on yourself, or a friend. It releases on Jan 7th and if you order it now you will have your copy hot off the press.

If you'd like to journey through this book with me next spring send me a little note...

~blessed on this foggy, quiet, lovely Sabbath~

Hello Mornings Fall Challenge

Registration for the fall challenge begins TOMORROW - Monday August 5th. This fall we will study the book of Ephesians, meet daily to check in with each other and spur one another on to stronger habits of time spend in God's word, in prayer, caring for our bodies, and planning the way we use our time. This is a process....filled with steps forwards and backwards....and in the midst of the process you may just find yourself making new friends and learning more about your true self. Join me! Let's seize the day!

Check out the Hello Mornings website to learn more. To register to join my group please use this link: Grace-Full Mornings group

Happy Birthday Norman and Clint.

To most of you May 31st is just another day in just another month....in another year that's likely going to quietly slip past you. This year I've decided to claim May 31st as my personal day of contentment.

Here's how I got there.

This is the rainiest May on record in Oregon (OK second rainiest or something, I really can't bear to listen to the weatherman long enough to focus on the statistics). RAIN RAIN RAIN. Rain that even Norman Vincent Peale (5/31/1898) would have trouble being optimistic about.  I really try not to complain about the weather but May always gets me down even though I work hard at making happiness a decision.

May 30th - a skunk sprayed my garage and may have spent some time in my house and ...well it was just plain stinky. I did my best Clint Eastwood (5/31/1930) impersonation but I'm betting that even Dirty Harry gives skunks a wide berth. May 31st - the smell is dissipating and I have a plan in place to thwart the little bugger tonight. All is well. Of course every time the black and white cat walks by me I still jump a little.

Today, May 31, 2013, the sun is shining and the birds are singing and I'm just super content. I'm reading a really good book. One of those you savor and bug everyone you know telling them they really should read it....in fact here's a little plug right now. You need to read this book. Better Off Without Jesus, written by Chuck Bomar (3/20/1975 - really, really too bad he wasn't born May 31st). Yeah that's a link to Amazon and I'm not an affiliate so I don't gain anything - buy it where ever you want. I read quite a bit and this is really one of the more convicting books I've read in a long time and it's any easy and engaging read. And in a weird way reading it is increasing my level of contentedness and if I can feel joy and peace while being challenged I figure that's a good thing. 

Today, May 31st, I'm grateful for peonies, and iced tea that tastes like pineapples and mangos, and for sunshine and a God who created all those things, along with asteroids that zip by (whoops, missed it)*. I'm blessed by people who think deeply, pray hard, and share their insights with the rest of us, by those who developed html and the joy of inserting hyper links so that you are only a click away from scads of trivia. I'm claiming joy, leaving the government of my life in stronger Hands and determined to stay engaged in community. Today, May 31st, I delight in the absence of rain and skunk scent. May it be so with you.

Adios May

*"This is a really big asteroid, similar in size to the one that killed off the dinosaurs, and it's getting very close to us," she said. "Fortunately we've been tracking its orbit very carefully so we know with great certainty it won't hit us.

"We don't need to panic, but we do need to pay attention," she said.  Amy Mainzer, who tracks near-Earth objects at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. 

Spring

From my prayer book for May 6, 2013 

Creator God, garden my life – turn it over, cultivate it, and make it ready for gospel seeds to take root.

And in the quiet darkness let the gospel do its work, 

     slow but powerful, 

          stirring up life in my heart,

                increasing joy, 

                     strengthening all your graces 

                          until shoots of new life rise 
                               and good fruit bursts forth on the branches of my life, 

                                   a life beautiful for you and a blessing to others.

Westminster Larger Catechism Q 75

Seeking God's Face

Hello Morning Challenge Summer 2013

This Spring was a little "hinky" for me...it brought the joy of a new granddaughter and the honor of spending time with my youngest as she found her rhythm as a mother. Another daughter took a big step in moving forward from a hard chapter into a better one. With good gifts sometimes we encounter messy stuff too. My schedule was interrupted and my plans had to be extra fluid and I found myself really missing the practices that set my day in a framework. I'm going to make my summer a time of intention!

I'd love for you to join me and a group of 14 other women as we commit to rising and meeting with the Lord, moving our bodies, and planning our time. Since I need to rest a bit later these days my group will have a later check in, so I've invited sisters in Hawaii and Alaska to join us. Their early morning is just about the right time for me to grab that second cup of coffee and check in.

To learn more about the challenge and register please use this link: register.hellomornings.org.

Please find the group that best fits your time zone and interests - check out a few to find your favorite.

My group is listed under both Facebook Pacific and Overseas.

(Direct link to my group, click here)

We'll be studying the book of John this summer using the free study guide that Inspired to Action will provide, begining May 6th. 

Grab a friend, daughter, mother...and give it a try!

Blast from the past: My mother, grandmother, myself (dad) and cousin.

Excess

Lent = fasting

Fasting = less

less stuff, less of me, less distraction

This year day two of Lent coincides with Valentine's day - a day associated with excess. Been in the grocery store this week? Scads of balloons, flowers and candy everywhere. An outpouring of love. Or guilt.

My little grandson came home from preschool today with a bag of candy. I gave myself permission to eat some treats today that aren't good for my body because somehow eating junk is connected with being good to yourself in our society, and on this day. So on this second day of our journey to the cross I'm feasting on stuff that doesn't help nourish my soul or my body and it's in direct contradiction to the scripture in my morning devotional:

 Isaiah 58:5-7
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Help me O Lord to look for the opportunities before me and to take action in your name. For truely, less is more when less brings more of you.

40 Days to the Cross

This blog was conceived two years ago as a form of Lenten discipline - both of engagement and abstinence as I stretched to respond to more while pulling back from words and mindless activity.

Lent approaches and my heart doesn't feel ready. My plans are not settled. What shall I "give up", what practice should I hone, what scripture is calling me to focus and study and go deeper?

I've been surrounded as of late with the subject of suffering and patience and trust. One group I participate in is studying Job, a book I just opened is a thoughtful study of trusting God, and a book I've been long awaiting debuts this week and promises to thrust my heart and mind even deeper into the concept of God's presence with us in the battle. (Click here to order this amazing resource - Beautiful Battlefields, by Bo Stern!). So perhaps for Lent 2013 as I journey to the cross I will  not plan but instead will wait, and listen, and rest. My prayer is that my hunger for both God's word and his voice will increase and my desire for aimless pursuits will dimish. 

Lastly I'm grateful for Shrove Tuesday because I forgot to plan a dinner for tomorrow and we have plenty of pancake mix. God is good and faithful to provide!

Tomorrow we begin the journey of 40 steps ....

21 Wonderstruck Days....

This week's "wonder words" were: 

Silence - on a day when my mind and physical world were crowded with words and noise and the thirst for silence was strong...a reminder to seek the space that allows me to hear God.

Relationship - on a day when a person crossing my path could have been just another appointment comes a reminder to be present, fully present, and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

Sky - on a day of gray the hope of "alpenglow" and the reminder of the vastness of God's nature and the fullness of his faithfulness. Soul brightening!

Stillness - on a day too busy with stuff I should do, waking to this call  - I cleared the decks and sat with God all.morning.long and the laundry is still not folded.

Dream - on a day in a week when dreams seem to be dashed, a purpose appears and I'm convicted to pray and trust God for the possible in "impossible" - to name and claim my heart's desire.

Prayer - on a day when I could be overwhelmed by so much I want to say to God and so much I want him to say to me and to others - a call to simplicity - three words - Father, Son, Holy Spirit....Speak Through Me.

I'm loving the way the 21 Days of Wonder Challenge is framing my week and focusing my days in unexpected ways. If you'd like to share the Challenge check it out by clicking here: The 21 Day Wonder Challenge with Margaret Feinberg

Cast Away - Castaway

Adrift

Anchorless, rudderless, tossed.

Discarded and discarding.

Heart empty. Ache. Infilling of calm.

Uncertainty requires clinging to tendrils of faith, and braiding them into a solid strong rope of sustanance.

there...at the core is the flame. 

Trust.

God is Good. God is Sovereign. He reigns over my hearthache. 

He redeems and restores.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments, 

and his paths beyond tracing out!

Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?

Who has ever given to God , that God should repay him?

For from him

And through him

And to him

Are all things.

To him be the glory forever!

Amen.

Romans 11:33-36