In the Hands of the Maker...

I am in the Hands of the Maker...

Just take a few moments to allow that statement to soak in...let it comfort your heart....let it be a balm to your weary soul.

With my eyes to the ground, things appear very rocky.  The path is winding and fraught with things that might cause me to stumble.  Discouragement can set in like a shift in the breeze, knocking me off course, making me ever more aware of my weakness, my frailty, my insufficiency.

But then, I pause and lift my eyes...and oh, the wonders they see!  I behold the majesty and grandeur of Creation.  I remember that my help comes from the Maker of Heaven and Earth.  How can it be?

He watches over me....day and night...

I watched as my father took hold of my mom's hand the other day while walking at the park, gently guiding her along the path.  There was a time, only a few short years ago that she would have done this for her grandchildren, but now it is she who needs to be led.  I wonder often at the reason for this, the timing, the purpose in it, if there is one.  I cry out to God for the strength to watch my loved ones suffer and for the faith to keep believing in His`ultimate plan for my life.

I am in the Hands of the Maker...

His care for me is constant, infinite, beyond my meager comprehension.  My help comes from Him.  I can and will walk this road He has laid out before me, because of and only because of His help.  All summer long, He shows me day by day, the great care He has poured into everything He has made.  Everywhere I look there is beauty.  The colors, and scents and tastes of summer bombard my senses with His presence.

I watch my children hold newly-hatched butterflies, still too delicate to fly...and I imagine my own heart, delicate and weak, being cradled by the hands that made the entire universe.

I am humbled.  I stop looking at the path that is far too difficult for me to manage on my own.  I look up, reach out, call out to Him...

And I know He is with me.

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—

the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life;

the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.

And Now I See....

We happened on a fun diversion for the kids after church yesterday.  We visited a pond with ducks after  church at the kids request and on our way back to the car, we happened to find a huge mister for the kids to play in, much to their extreme delight.  Every couple of minutes, towering silver poles would release a cloud of mist, which settled down on the kids so thickly that they were completely obscured from view.  For about ten seconds, the mist was so thick they could not see anything, and we could not see them.  Then, one by one, they emerged from the cloud, gleefully screaming, smiles on their faces, and water dripping from their glistening heads. 

Again and again, they positioned themselves back in the midst of the poles, waiting for the cloud to reappear.  Again and again they begged us, "Just one more time?"  And we obliged them for a while...

Do you feel like your life is lived in a fog sometimes?  You are looking for clarity...answers...meaning to the things that are happening?  Do you struggle and grope your way through your days, stumbling because your vision is partially obscured? 

If there is any truth I can share, any observation I have made, it is this...that my life has never been more clear, my path more certain, than at the times I am following God.  Ask Him to open your eyes.  Ask Him to help you see through the haze of distractions that surrounds you, surrounds us all while we live out our days. 

And when you do this, when you wait on Him and His answer, you will find so much joy.  You'll suddenly see with a new purpose and clarity. 

Dear God, help me today not to focus on the clouds but on You and Your promises to me.  Lead me in the path that I should go and make my paths straight.  Give me meaning in my days.  I ask that You would draw near and reveal Yourself to me.  Bring abundant joy to my heart as my path becomes more clear and my understanding of your Word deepens.  Amen.

Psalm 119:18(AMPC)

Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law.

The (Very) Small Things...

Summer is racing to an end far too fast for me, and part of the reason is that we've literally lost the last 3 weeks to some raging summer pneumonia that took our family by storm after one innocent visit to the Children's Museum.  (Note to self...never step foot in a museum again!!!)

All seven family members have now contracted the illness with Derrick and I holding out to the bitter end...  We've had 5 doctor visits, 14 (I think) prescriptions filled, 2 after hours pages to the pediatrician when one child had a reaction to the first medication and two others waited to get sick until a Saturday night, and 5 kids all supposed to do three nebulizer treatments a day for the last few weeks....my head is truly spinning!  The people at the Pharmacy now look at me with sympathy in their eyes when I'm back day after day...

So if there is any advice I can give you...don't go to museums in the summer (or perhaps ever) when kids are supposed to be healthy for months on end...and don't wait a week to go to the doctor when you suspect you may have pneumonia...toughing it out just didn't work out so well!

Throughout this time, it has been interesting for me to observe our family dynamics...the way various children stepped in to help when others we sick...the amount of time we have spent together over the past three weeks in very close quarters which normally would not happen during this often-busy time of year.  Our calendar was cleared out though...we were in this for the long haul...and now (hopefully) the end is in sight. 

Every time I've had the opportunity, I've tried to get outside to enjoy the beauty of summer and it has often lifted my spirits so much just to see the tiny "miracles" in my own backyard.  With life slowing down so much, I've actually had more time (imagine that!) to appreciate the small things I often take for granted. 

It was such a blessing in many ways to have this gentle reminder, not to lose focus of all these small wonders, even the very smallest.  It was a blessing that Derrick and I were able to care for our children and nurse each one of them back to health or get them started, before we got sick.  It was a blessing that this happened right now when we had no major commitments, birthdays, holidays...

God is Good! 

I know in a short while, life will return to it's light-speed pace...we'll be splitting up to take the kids to all their various activities...and I may just look back on these three weeks with a wee bit of fondness...

Well...maybe fondness isn't quite the right word!!

This Side of Heaven...

How do I find hope when the days are so long and so hard, when my trials seem to stretch on like and endless lazy river, when there seems to be no "answer" to my prayers...

Oh how we long to know the reasons why we suffer...why we must go through such incredible trials again and again.  "How God...how can I keep going when I feel as though I'm at the absolute end of my rope...physically and emotionally?" 

Though His answers don't come as a booming voice from Heaven or in writing on the wall...softly, gently, He does answer.  (He often does this...in ways we tend to overlook or don't understand...)

He reminds me that His peace is perfect..and that it is available to me always.

Isaiah 26:3 AMPC

You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.

He reminds me that this peace can carry me, steadily and unswervingly, through ever trial I am facing... 

He reminds me (this week) that a God who lovingly put so much care into the creation of each tiny caterpillar...and made them to transform miraculously into beautiful butterflies, certainly cares for me.

He reminds me that I'm looking for perfection on this side of Heaven...and that it is not to be found here.  I will continue to be disappointed if I'm placing my hope on things that are not eternal.  I'll continue to be discouraged if I'm looking for lasting joy in the temporal things of this world.

"Are you committed?" He asks me...

"Are your hopes in Me and Me alone?  And are you confident in My ability to make all things new again one day?"

The storm has not diminished...indeed it is raging ever more fiercely in my life as I continue to watch my mom slip away piece by piece, and as I continue to grieve for my lost brother...as a friend battles cancer...and another fights to save her marriage...and as the kids go from one sickness to another in the last month.  But there is a Peace...a peace the Savior demonstrated while He slept undisturbed in the bottom of a lowly fishing boat that was being tossed in a violent storm.  There is a peace that is perfect and constant and this peace is available to me, each and every day.

John 16:33  "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."