Our Camping Trip…

I see You in the beautiful, the precious, the peaceful.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father.  James 1:17

A man pounding the stake back in during the fierce storm, without even being asked.

The children laughing, running about the field, catching the penny toads, then fireflies, always kindling.

The ducks begging quack as they follow the little ones around.

The way the camp fire’s flames lick blue, the embers smolder red hot, the smoke rises its thoughts to heaven.

I’m sure thoughts of thanksgiving, for our sacrifice, our warmth, our enjoyment.

The talking, the offering up of our friendship to each other over hot dogs, hot fires and smores.

Another neighbor man untangling, restringing the fishing pole, retying the bate, the bobber for the glad young boy.

The young one asked, “Where is God?”

The middle one said that she did something for someone else, but said how it was unimportant.

The older wise one said, “If you do it to the least of these you’re doing it to Jesus.”

The middle one smiled.  The other heads bobbed.  My minds eye trying to take it all in.

And the smoke rises offerings of bread to ducks, the painful putting back of the penny toads to their original home, the cuddling of the littlest one shivering at night by the big sister.

Offerings of sacrifice, of love, of gratitude.

Over all You’ve made so beautiful.

Over the crickets symphonies of white noise, so lovely, singing me to sleep.

The precious faces sun kissed and peaceful as they sleep side-by-side in the tent.

My hearts warmth rises to Your footstool, like the smoke, my offering not visible, except by You.
Our Creator of every good and precious gift

You, who’s very creation reveals You, reflects You and unveils You.

Your beauty so obvious, Your love so warm, Your peaceful and precious wrapped in what an eye can behold and the hand can touch.

So they waddle away, hop away and we pack up

And the fire dies away leaving the embers that smolder and the smoke…

The smoke that speaks

In Your Wake...

Vacuuming behind the couch is a big job but I can’t put it off any longer.

My littlest girl decides to help me. 

She rides on the couch as I push it aside.

I find that bulletin with the missionary opportunities in it.  I set it aside.

She finds a toy but can’t squeeze behind the couch to put it away.  The path to get there was just too narrow.

We find a piece of garbage, and she, not able to fit through the now limited normal route to the garbage can, realizes she needs to go the other way around.

She says, “It’s the bigger path.”

I vacuum around every nook and cranny.

Then I pushed the couches back in place and she could now put away the little toy.

She’s easy to work with.  I love that!

I remember how the business men were talking about how Christians were the worst to work with.

I guess they are the most difficult, mean and fickle.

In the Believer’s wake is the back stabbed businessman who poured hours and care into what the Believer wanted.

Would I be like that Believer?

I think about my past experiences…

Even if I can’t think of a time when I acted thoughtlessly, I’m sure my departure wake has hurt some.

I grieve over the thought of how the business world has been affected by Christ followers.

I grieve over the time that now comes to mind when I was that awful believer.

I try to justify the “bigger path” that I took that day.

I repent.

I re-pick up the bulletin that burns in my hand and sears my heart.

How can we think about being missionaries to other countries when we can’t be “real” within our own neighborhoods, in our own towns, to our own people?

I crumble up the bulletin and stick it in my pocket. 

I vacuum the middle of the floor.

It does seem to be easier to neglect what’s behind where we sit each day,

Where we sit to meet for business,

Where we see only what’s right in front of us.

It’s easy to not want to do what’s hard.

Some call it being “on”… but shouldn’t our person be refined enough to let some of our guard down without being embarrassed…

Of the dusty, the dead bug, the garbage and the gracelessness.

What once was a common curtsy is now a mask, a toy to be donned when necessary.

And put in the toy box for later when not.

Who are we really?

Who am I really?

I think about the narrow path.

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.  Matthew 7:13-14

I think about how I helped my littlest one, by moving the couch back into place, so she could put away her toy.

I think about the businessman…

And the wake I left, that was probably hard to swallow.

I think about how we all really need each other.

To look over our fence in kindness,

To move the couches, the business deals, the things that seem impossible for other ones… alone.

To walk hand in hand

Or side by side

Or in your wake…

Of love, of kindness, of thoughtfulness along the narrow path

The path that was built, brick by brick, by the One who could sum up all of our purpose, all of the law, and all of the prophets words with…

Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.  Matthew 7:7

It’s good to vacuum behind the couches, with another.

It’s good to walk this narrow path with you and him, and her, and their people too.

But it’s too narrow, too tight of a space to leave a wake of mean and hurt.

I look up that businessman’s number.

I think about next time…

I vacuum behind the couches

I call a business person

I look around the cobwebs in my heart and decide to leave it better than the way I found it.

Because on this narrow path, there just isn’t any room for anything…

But kindness, thoughtfulness and love.

Grieving with Hope…

I sit in my favorite chair.  Watching outside as the rain falls, beating on the window, blurring my vision.

I remember where I sat on their couch when they told the news of your death.

I was frozen in time.  My mind trying to digest the news, the moment.

Everyone around me still moved; I couldn’t.

Everything running through my head and nothing, all at the same time.

I tried to comprehend; I couldn’t.

I began to ask questions.  The why, what, when, where and how kinds of questions.

Still trying to wrap my mind around the incomprehensible.

How can everyone around me keep living, keep moving?

Why does God allow death to happen?

What could I have done to change the result?

When was her death date really supposed to be?  When is mine?

Where did everything spin out of control and lead to her death?

These are the real questions that plagued me.

The questions that resurfaced, and I suppressed again and again, because it hurt too much to actually think through.

It hurt my heart and made my headache from all the crying.

Nothing seemed to comfort; nothing could get close enough because the questions bared the door to healing.

A dear friend asked me how I was.

I was still reeling.  Out came words from my incoherent thinking that spoke of my shock.

I digested the truth, the concrete answers of what happened.

My brain was still trying to accept the truth.

I couldn’t even cry at first.  It took so long to sink in.

The rain is pelting the window, harder then before.

Yet, there’s a stillness, a peace.

How in the midst of turmoil can there be peace?

I almost want to reject it for the grief in my heart weighs heavily, but I need it.  It sustains me.

I cry for all she won’t become.

I cry for who she was to me.

I cry for me without her.

I grieve.

I wrestle back and forth as anger, pain and hurt rages.

I feel like I’m in a battle but its all me and who can I be against?

Maybe it’s me against God.

So the age old “why” questions cloud my mind.

They beg answers that don’t seem to come.

Or maybe all that rages so greatly inside blocks the reasonable or what I can’t seem to accept.

Because it’s not ok.

And she’s gone.

Part of me is gone.

Yet, so much stays inside of me.

The part in my mind that remembers.

The part in my heart that loves.

Though You have made me see troubles, many and bitter, You will restore my life again, from the depths of the earth You will again bring me up.  You will... comfort me once again.  Psalms 71:20-21

So I allow His will.

There is no other choice.  I surrender my war that rages.  I wave my white flag.

I accept that You hate death but allowed someone precious to my heart to pass away until the end. When You call us.

The rain stops beating as hard on the window.  More of Your peace flows over me.

I peel back the curtains.  My vision clears some too.

All the years with her.  I saw Him in her so many times.  She challenged me so many times to be better. Why does the best have to pass so quickly, so young, sometimes.

The ache, the rawness, the trembling.

Is there hope?  I start to sink.

I look up.  I look to You because I’m desperate.

The sun cuts through; the clouds start to move away.  Your hope sets in, sinking to the very depth of me.  I need You.  No one else can reach where it aches.  No one else can see the pain and catch my tears that are now drying up or running out.

I stand before the Son, warming my face, drying my tears.  Watching the rain drops roll down the window pain and ebbing away.  Washing away everything but the remembering, the missing.  The knowing that she’s gone; hopefully with Him.

How does the sunset and rise and people move about on a day like this?  How can it rise tomorrow, held down by the weight, the loss?  Can’t it be broken and let the sorrow wallow for a long night?

I remember her smile, her life, her tenacity.  I can barely see outside of my heart, my sorrow.

I look up to make sure You’re still there, that You still care and You streak down the sky a rainbow that seems to stretch to me.  

You lift my soul as I follow the colorful path that recounts Your faithfulness through the storm and hope of the Son shining forth toward tomorrow.

Light ricocheting and refracting, bent for my pleasure, my hope, and my promise.

I hear Him whisper a promise that spans grief’s distance and a hope that acts as a salve.

It still hurts but there’s hope.

I thank God for equipping our minds with memories and our hearts with depth...

To hold the love.

And I thank Him for the path that leads past rainbow promises to eternal hope in Him.

Without it, we’d all just die.

Yet, she didn’t just go.  She left after giving, after living, after loving.

And so I understand why the sun must rise and I must move.

It’s what He wants.  The living and laughing and loving and giving.

Even in finding Him in the sorrow and grief and in the pain of loss.

And knowing there is purpose and promise within it all.

Praise be to... God... the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubled, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.  1 Corinthians 1: 3-5