Unsatisfied By Average

The Musings of a Stubborn Believer

Category: family moments (page 5 of 5)

Brightest Stars…

Sitting on the futon in my office wrapped in a blanket, and staring out glass french doors at the birth of another frosty morning, I am intrigued–
One by one the lights of heaven –suns burning bright and hot in their places lifetimes away– go out. The promise of another blue sky reaching farther and farther west washes them from remembrance, at least for today.
But one remains. It’s not the largest, hottest, or whitest… In fact, it’s not a star. 
But that’s ok. It’s the brightest.
Now my eyes and my heart turn back to my office, my morning, my life.
There are plenty of “bright stars” in life’s night sky. 
But those who shine brightest and longest have no light of their own. They’re simply reflectors. 
We’re no stars anyway!
But that’s ok. As long as He can shine brightest through us…
“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure… That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.
Philippians 2:13, 15

None Stronger.


Isaiah 47-52
Gone for 5 days, home for fleeting moments, gone for 12 days. 
We’ll see if I have internet this time…
I have a lot to be thankful for. The last 5 days were spent in the Gila wilderness with my family, 10 miles beyond nowhere. I’ll upload more photos sometime… 
Every moment was loaded… But especially memorable were the silent times accented by Isaiah, and Christ’s Object Lessons. If I didn’t have to get some sleep before rolling out of here for my early flight tomorrow, I’d write more… But I just have time for one of my very favorite lines– 

“The Lord hath made bare His holy arm…”

As if to prove to all the world that there is none stronger. 
Like, none. End of discussion.
  

Not Mine…

Isaiah 39
Boast not of those things which are not yours anyway… 
Hezekiah did, and his son lost his crown, and his people lost their freedom. 
As I sit here at my desk listening to the birds sing thorough open glass doors and delighting in the fresh crispness of mountain air just after sunrise, I glance around my desk– Of all places in this house, here sits the greatest concentration of things I call “my own.”  
Of course almost all my assets under this roof are found here… Thousands in hardware, thousands in software…
But of greater value are the many little treasures found here… A handmade plaque, a pencil sharpener from Australia, a music box, picture frames, a Beanie Baby kitten named Zip, a little button boy named Pillsbury, penholders, notes, quotes, bookmarks… 
The picture of my best friend that just flitted across the screen, the list of friends I pray for from Germany, the list of friends that pray for me, here…
All these reminders– Reminders of the greatest treasures I have. 
All of them, people. 
But they’re not mine! 
They belong to the same God I belong to… I must remember that. 
The moment I forget, they become a liability to me, and I to them. 
If my heart is God’s, and all my gifts are God’s, then together we are all at His disposal, and we all share in His glory…
In the mean time, “My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.” (Psalms 34:2)


Faithful and True

Isaiah 25
Enough bad news.  
At the start of a very full day when a bunch of things seem to have gone “wrong”…
(Like losing my wallet, or my abducted homework, or dealing with deadlines while packing for a 12 day trek to Chicago) …I found the word of the day. 🙂 
Actually, I found “strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow…”

The word is “Faithful and True.”

Let that one go around the world a couple of times!
Isaiah 25 tells me that everything He has ever done has been faithfulness and truth…
And I can see it. I still don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know each day spent with Him is brighter than the last…
I’m thankful. 🙂

One Little Digression

Pardon me if digress from my normative tenor momentarily…
There are plenty of blogs that serve as little more than a landing pad for 100 perfectly unrelated YouTube videos, and this is not one of them.
But the EMT in me wants to assert itself just this once to make one simple plea: 
Please wear your seatbelt. I’m serious… 


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Frightened? I would have been too.
Wouldn’t you have been, if you had been in the vehicle when the tires started whining on dry pavement like a bottle rocket? Imagine looking out the window when it launched off of the bank sideways. Split seconds must have seemed like minutes…and the cycle of light and dark must have well reflected the fight between hopes and fears as the vehicle silently rolled in midair. 
Or maybe your eyes would have been closed…
And maybe his eyes were still closed when the tree trunk started them spinning (still in midair) on 2 axes, not one. Maybe when all was still again the blood and broken glass convinced him to keep them that way. 
Yes, I think I would have been frightened. Especially if I hadn’t yet seen my sixth birthday.   
It took me a few minutes to get to him, (being outnumbered by victims at a scene by a factor of 2 is not ideal) but by the time the rest of our colleagues got there with the ambulances, he had taught me something beautiful about service, and about life… 
It was in his face. Wide eyes told me the story. He was terribly afraid. And even in the bystander’s car with the heat all the way up, he was shaking like a little leaf.
“Hi buddy, my name is Sean. I work on the ambulance. Can I help you?”
“Mhm…”
“What’s your name? Does this hurt? Ok, hold really still for me. Good boy… I’m just going to hold your head like this… Is this your brother?”
“Yeah… We were, we were just going to the lake…”
But he wouldn’t stop shaking. Even after 5 minutes. 
Finally–
“Is my mommy still in that car?” 
Oh, I get it…
“Yes. But she should be out soon. They’re working on it right now.”
“But is it going to explode?”
I wish you could have seen his little face. Scratched and swollen as it was, to me it was the ultimate theater of Grace for one beautiful moment. The moment when I said “Oh no, definitely not. They’re taking care of her.” 
His neck relaxed.
Ohhh… good.”
That’s when I decided few privileges compare to healing hurts, and calming fears…
Thanks, my little friend.
I’m so glad you all made it home…

Lessons of Life…

Learn a lesson from a dog…
* * * * * * * * * * * *

Eyes fixed on the prize…

Oh yes!!

Oh dear…
* * * * * * * * *
Things are not always what you think they’ll be.
What are you striving for?

Every Time!

I’ve seldom seen a sky so blue, smelled air so sweet, felt the sun so perfectly warm… and been perfectly oblivious to it. That is, until I saw the light…

I was on the hillside airing my brain with prayers and a journal. Hours of work behind me, hours still ahead… The snow still 8 inches deep in spots around me, my mind 1,000 miles away. One word kept coming up… Impossible.

For a time, I prayed and prayed… And then I walked off of the hillside, ready.

That’s when I stepped in the entry door to find Tasha in the final stages of lunch prep.

“I’ve just got one question, and my question is this: When irresistible power meets immovable object, who wins?”

She stopped mid-step and looked at me. (I love that look…) Silence. One hand on the Vita-Mix, the other on a bag of frozen tropical fruit. Then, a smile…

Irresistible Power.”

Now it’s my turn…
“Every time.”

“Oh, that’s awesome…” (in the true sense of the word)…

Yes. I’m thankful…

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