Saturday 22 November 2014

This Beautiful Dance

Dancing.

A word that keeps popping up these days in my everyday walking about life; in my reading, in the listening of music, in church, in the hospital and standing in line in the grocery store. Dancing, not in the way you’d think, not in the moving of feet in rhythm, body swaying, no, dancing in the way of thinking, living, doing, being…being better, hoping for more, feeling lighter, spirits lifted…making things better; that even though we may seem to be in the trenches, we need only to change our perspective and change weeping into dancing.

In the wanting of justice, it seems right to stomp around demanding rights but the better thing is to lighten the load and change demanding to dancing.  In breathing, simply breathing; oxygen and blood, pumping moving, dancing…the rhythm of our body.  Cancer?  Yes, a living thing and even though hard and cruel, it brings us to a dancing that brings hope, hope in the healing, hope in the fighting and hope in the loving.  In sadness, the dancing of the soul sways with the heart.

Today marks the loss of my John, five years gone…that day, the darkness of my soul.  This day feeling lighter, but still something missing…I would never have imagined that I would be in this place, in this space, on this road, five years, not a life time but a long time, me making my way through this life, sometimes on my knees but sometimes dancing; swaying back and forth, in and out of the troubles, challenges, accomplishments, sadness, sorrow filled days and joys…dancing.  This loss, a constant swaying from this place to that mountain, dipping down to the valley and sometimes slipping into the trench…thankfully, thankfully I look up to see the stars and the dancing starts again and I live better, do better and change my weeping to dancing.

Thank God for dancing…this beautiful dance with life allows our soul to grow.

“Above all, watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always
hidden in the most unlikely places…
those who don’t believe in ‘dancing’ will never find it.”
Roald Dahl

It's there on the mountaintop
It's there in the everyday and the mundane
There in the sorrow and the dancing
Your great grace
Oh, such grace.


Dancing in His grace...I love that.

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Every Story Needs a Final Word


I have had this phrase on my mind these last few days…’Every story needs a final word’. '

Wouldn’t that be perfect?  A final word would finish off the story, the story that you are in right now, the story that happened to you last week, last year, the story that hasn’t finished well.  If only there was a last word, a final word that made the ending better, well, at least better understood.
 
A final word gives clarity; a final word puts an end to the story.  I have a story that I need an ending to, a final word that will make me see the purpose, the reason the story happened in the first place. I need the final word.  Everyone has a story, sometimes we think that our story is the saddest, the hardest…the most difficult to have even survived.  Sometimes our story is the best, the sweetest... more wonderful than anything possible happening to anyone else.  These stories are happening all around us, to our people and other people on the edges. But the only thing that makes their story the most difficult or more wonderful is the final word.  The finish.  What happened next…how did it end?  Is it even over?

John dying was a final word.  His life, touched with amazing grace.  I can’t imagine being at peace with his death if I didn’t understand this final word at the end of his story.

Not all stories end with understanding, we find ourselves struggling to find clarity, to hear the final word, the word that will end what we are going through right now…sometimes we wait 36 years, sometimes we won’t hear the word at all… the never ending story.  What do we do with the never ending story?

We give it to God; it is the only thing we can do…rest in Him, wait on Him, hope in Him; the peace that surpasses all understanding.  Clarity.  My friend calls it a higher power, I call it the Grace of God... the final word to every story.


I love that.

Thursday 6 November 2014

More to it...Priceless

Dear Kelly,  words to a sweet friend who is getting married, soon and very soon... 

Put a Little ZING in it...nothing better than that, right?

I watched a sweet cartoon movie with my grandchildren the other day, it was called Hotel Transylvania!

It was about Dracula's daughter who meets up with a human boy.   It is love at first sight, for both of them.  Their eyes light up and it seems that everything around them stands still…the movie calls it “finding your ZING.”  I love that, who wouldn’t?
  
Love stories are the best, especially the love-at-first -sight ones.

Pretty sure Kelly, that yours was a love-at-first-sight love story! You found your ZING! And it seems that Isaac found his in you.  Two ZINGS and I am pretty sure as well that the whole of Arnold heard the sound of it.

I am so happy for you, what could be better than making plans for living life with a ZING…a gift from God truly, an amazing gift of His grace and joy and love.  Nothing is greater than love!  Finding love for yourself and to have it so equally returned…priceless.

But there is more to living this life than just ZING; we need compassion, strength, encouragement, hope, understanding…and more than that, we need peace beyond all understanding.  This life is hard, there will be ups and downs, wins and failures, there will be losses and mistakes, there will be stuff so hard that your heart will break from the weight of it and there will be joys that take you so high you will melt in the beauty of them.  Laughter, tears, heart ache, compassion, love…

Yes, the greatest of these is love.

One of the ways to keep in this love is to also keep God in your love story, He is the one who gives the peace that surpasses all understanding, He is the one who holds your heart in the palm of His hand, and He is the one who will save you from all your missteps and mistakes. He will pick you up, both of you, in all times, in Zing and out of Zing!

I have kept this quote by Maya Angelou, a sweet reminder to a woman’s soul…she says,

"A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God, that a man 
should have to seek Him to find her”

Remember this, when you are loving Isaac, in this every day breathing and walking about life…remember to love God, the one from whom your ZING came.

You are getting married...I love that!